Cisme
by Dark and Chaotic
Summary: The world had always been such a terrible, beautiful place, full of colors. Then why do we always split it in half, in Black and White? In Good and Evil? Nobody has one without the other. I thought I knew what the world was about. But then I died. Then I found Magic. Or, rather, it found me. fem!harry SI.
1. Welcome to your new life!

Words have power. We don't say them as often as we want to but we also don't understand why sometimes words fail us, no matter how many we spew out. It is a most elegant form of irony, that. Some people are born with the art of words like a gift given. Others let their actions speak for them. And then there are those who posess neither words nor actions but still get by. That's how life is. No matter who you are, you learn to get by. We learn to survive. And some of us even learn to live.

But back to my original point.

Words have power. Words also have meaning and, depending on who you are, meanings can vary so greatly between one person to the next that if, say, for one person a certain word holds power, then for the next person it might not even hold any coherent meaning. We all have words like that. Some are names, some are just random nouns, some are verbs.

 _Love, love is a verb_

 _Love is a doing word_

 _Fearless on my breath_

Some words carry more power than others. Words like Love. Words like Hate. Words like Family. Sometimes keeping one's word can be a power in its own right. It was one of the first lessons I learned early on in my life. It also happened to be the last lesson I learned. Some promises can carry you beyond the grave.

Even broken ones. 

Certain words can define a person. Those words usually pertain into the purview of what people classify as names, but most often than not when you ask about a word that defines a person, you won't say Mary, or John (or Ori). No. You say 'That person is kind.' or ' That person is stupid'. Now, my therapist used to say that we shouldn't let others define us, especially when said definitions were derogatory or demeaning in nature. I worked with said therapist for six months, more or less, and while it helped me deal with life, it did not help as much as I, or my friends, had hoped. I was still very prone to brooding for hours on end, ignoring the world for the sake of my own inner turmoils born from a combination of cataclysmicaly accidental circumstances combined with a crippling depression that I don't really think I had the time to recover from, given that it was from heartbreak and then...

And then Ori died and my world had ended because I failed that as well and for all my potentiall, for all my talents and strengths and skills, I was still nothing more than a drop out failure. Ori was dead and life went on.

And then life went on without me.

It was around that time that I realized something was not quite right. Namely, I realized that what used to be a 23, almost 24 year old woman was now a four year old toddler stuck in a not so tiny (for now) cupboard under the stairs in an otherwise bright, prim and proper household on Privet Drive, Number 4.

At first I thought all of this to be some sort of elaborate dream, but after several days in which the tall, thin woman with the shrill voice kept bothering me to no end for whatever she perceived as a slight against her person (how a toddler would be capable of that was beyond me), I came to realize that the problem did not lay within my environment. Rather, the problem lay with me. And like any problem worth investigating, I began exercising what was now my toddler powered brain and started asking questions.

I don't know what goes for a normal four year old. As far as I remember and as far as my dear old mother had told me on many, many occasions during our weekly arguments, I had never been a normal four year old to begin with originally, so I hardly had to break any sweat worrying about it. There was also material for comparison, namely Dudders. Now, I don't know what constitutes as a normal 4 year old child, but I was certain Special Snowflake Extraordinaire Dudders did not fall under the purview of the definition of the word normal, either.

Dudders, as a specimen, was a rather large and well developed child for his age. Physically, at least. Mentally was another thing entirely. While not lagging behind in ways I could in good conscience call retarded or autistic with all their gloriously medical connotations, he was still considerably simple-minded and consistently displayed only the very base and simple desires of "Ma! Food!" and, my personal favourite "Ma! Bathroom!". There were also the exclamations of "Toys!", "Candy!" and how could I forget the ever present "I want that!", "Mine!" and "No!".

Dudders was an exceptionally spoiled child. It is humbling in a way to know that somehow my very presence in this household, as extremely unwanted as it was, was still capable of making such drastic changes for the sake of maintaining what was considered normal. The very meaning of the word Normal was butchered and reconfigured through whatever prism passed as Vernie and Tunie's philosophy on life, family and socially acceptable norms.

Vernie's word was law. That I knew better than anything else. That was instinct, that was my only rule of survival. What Vernie says, goes. Tunie, his wife, upheld said laws when he was off to work or similarly not present. Vernie was one of those big, tough, oldschool fellows who sported a particularly meaty and husky physical disposition, which spoke both of physical power (perhaps some kind of sport in his youngster years?) and of his great appetite and love of comforts. In appearance, Tunie was his absolute opposite. She was wiry and thin, with a somewhat long face which, had she some 10 kilograms on top, would have looked somewhat pretty and not just acceptably mediocre and forgettable.

Dudders was obviously going to take after his father, given the careful dotting of both parents in that direction. Most of Dudders' toys were things typically considered boy toys, like toy soldiers, robots (oh god how he completely demolishes those Transformers! Has he no HEART!?), tanks, trucks, toy jet planes and what not. If I were to describe Dudders' day to day activities to someone interested in Urban Anthropology, then I'd give the short and concise answer of Might makes Right and Manliness. This completely covered any and all understanding that was allowed within Dudders' head.

Now, to be honestly objective and fair, it wasn't as if Tunie herself wasn't trying to mentally stimulate her child. More often than not, however, Dudders won nine out of ten times with his silly little child tantrums and, in her efforts to not upset him (and consequently upset Vernie), she'd put away the unwanted BORING stuff for the sake of demolishing that absolutely glorious looking Megatron with dear, poor old Starscream. I am a Con fan, ok? It's wrong! What that child is doing is Wrong with capital W and that his parents allow him to do so is a Travesty against Humanity!

But I digress, his Autobots were at least in a better, more servicable condition, if mostly because, like myself, Dudders was with Pro-Con inclinations rather than Pro-Bot inclinations. Either way, Tunie'd do good to teach him a bit responsibility, but she herself seemed blind to the prospects that Dudders' early years required a careful guiding hand lest he turned into your regular white trash sociopath normie.

Parents tend to do this to their children mostly unconsciously. Typical human behavior is to either confront or avoid a problem and when a person is literally incapable of confronting a problem then they do everything in their power to either avoid it at all costs or conform to it. In this case I was the problem. The problem of simply existing within their perfect little world where nothing odd or strange EVER happened. Because of my being a problem and Tunie and Vernie being unable to get rid of me for whatever reason, they simply chose to circumvent the problem as much as possible.

I learned very early on, even before I was aware like I am aware of things right now, that both Tunie and Vernie were terrified of me. That terror slowly but surely turned into seeping, simmering hatred born of whatever helplessness kept me by their side. For that reason I could not find it in myself to hate them back. I knew that in their eyes I was weird and strange and all kinds of supernatural evil or whatever they thought I was. But I also knew the most likely reason why I had ended up here like this. And let's say that I am of the strong opinion that I deserve this.

I was not a model child. I was not a model child in my past life (there! I said it!) and I am certain that I would not be a model child in this life. Before I became aware, before I awakened to the reality of this life, I had spent more or less the last ten years of my admittedly short life fighting my parents for anything and everything with tooth and nail, and with the zest of someone desperate to be freed of external control. Compared to the life I seem to be leading now, my old life had been paradise. Even with the daily arguments and shouting matches. Even with the broken expectations that I upturned at every chance I got. Even with the pain I still felt oh so keenly in my little 4 year old chest that no matter what I did, they had never truly acknowledged me, and considering that in this life my parents died to drunken driving, I doubted that I'd be the recipient of parental approval this time around as well. And that realization hurt more than I'd ever say out loud.

You see, just like words, pride can also be a powerful thing. It can be your driving force up until the very moment it leads to your downfall and even then you'd be reluctant to let go. I never let go of my pride. No matter what, I knew my worth and that worth was greater than what my parents had thought of me and it would surely be greater than whatever Tunie and Vernie'd be able to throw my way. I was a 24 year old woman, 28 if you counted the four years I've already spent here. I carried the knowledge of that life time. I carried information of things that were to come, both wonderful and terrible.

In this world, in this life, it was the year 1984. In my previous life, I was born on the 31st of July, the very last baby for that day, in the year 1995. I died sometime after the second half of 2018. I don't know how, though I strongly suspect it was by my own hand. I'd spent the last six years in various states of suicidal, nihilistic, apathetic, angry and grieving enough to know that was the most probable outcome. Even if I had promised not to. Maybe I was here because I broke that promise. Maybe I wasn't really reincarnated like some of those small children I've seen on weird existential documentaries who talked how they died in fighter planes back in World War Two. What if I was in a coma and this was the manifestation of my guilt ridden subconscious or some such shit.

I don't know, I am not exactly an expert on my mental state, though I am certain all of this would have some sort of value to my therapist. I wonder what she'd think of all of this?

CRASH!

I discreetly rolled my eyes in exasperation, desperatly trying to avoid another internal existential crisis. I'd promised myself to keep those to a minimum, but it was proving kind of hard, especially when Dudders just destroyed another Decepticon that had been mint condition Generation One original earlier this morning. For a kid that's barely four, Dudders has a ridiculously strong throwing arm. Maybe he'd get into rugby later on. I heard rugby was a thing here, and considering I've never really been into sports, I didn't particularly care. I did, however, particularly care about how far Dudders would be able to throw something at me and if I'd be able to avoid it fast enough.

Dudders might be simple minded but, just like any small child, he was perceptive enough to know what he could get away with. Dudders, in particular, is capable of getting away with quite a lot and the little devil was still testing and stretching the boundaries of acceptable behavior in this household on a daily basis. Given his doting mother Tunie and that beast of a mountain Vernie, I doubted things would change anytime soon.

While Dudders enjoyed a relative toddler godlike freedom, I was stuck on the other end of the scales, under the scrutiny of Tunie's stern, all-seeing gaze. It seemed her blindness was specifically Dudders oriented. And Dudders, being mommy's perfect little boy of course, used that particular trait of his mother to get me into as much trouble as possible for the sake of the pure sadistic glee that only children were capable of.

If that little shit broke something behind dear Mommy's back, he'd point in my direction and blame me. Tunie would then proceed with what constitutes as a stern talking to, sometimes even outright hollering. Hollering by Tunie's standards went along the lines of hissing through clenched teeth. God forbid a neightbour hears or sees anything! Tunie's a master of the quiet intimidation should she put her mind to it. Such intimidation is not brought on by threats and dark promises of punishment. In Tunie and Vernie's household any and all threats are dealt with immediately and most often in a physical manner. I'd get slapped on my wrists, maybe a light slap on the face (Tunie knows just how much I HATE being slapped on the face) or outright spanking. So far I've been spanked about three or four times and that's five or six slaps each. Tunie's more of a fan of twisting my ears or yanking my arms painfully, but considering I am a tiny, scrawny four year old, and she a wiry, taut adult, she might as well have put as much energy as in swatting butterflies and it still would have hurt me.

Corportal punishments were Vernie's law. I think I've already said he's an old fashioned, old school fellow that believes in the school of hard knocks or some such shit. I wouldn't have minded it as much if he also delivered some of that special justice to ickle Dudders as well. To be honest I am glad that Vernie isn't particularly physical with his punishments. If he so much as absentmindedly swats at me with the same intent as Tunie swatting at butterflies or moths, I'd be done for with a bona fide one shot.

The corporal punishments don't bother me, at least not at the moment. I was more bothered by other things that had I not been an almost mother myself, I wouldn't have cared to know them. First of all, Tunie, for all her faults and selective blindness, at least tries to feed me properly. Compared to Dudders and the general lifestyle of this household, however, I considered myself to be underweight and subpart to the average for a four year old. Like I said, corporal punishments do not bother me as much as being sent to my cupboard without eating dinner, for example, or being given half a portion or a cold meal. Tunie feeds me and gives me my due, but given my undesired presence and Dudders' own brand of help, I am often left hungry.

I've made the mistake to ask Tunie for extra food once. I got a scolding about how ungrateful a freak I was and how I was nothing more but a drain on the family with no other purpose than to be a useless leech. Hey, I understand she hates me with a passion. I even sort of understand that she has no choice but to take care of me. But what I truly regret is giving Tunie her most frightful tool in her quest to keep me under the iron fist of Vernie's rule. I gave her my hunger. Tunie knows I take the physical punishments without complaint. Complaints only lead to more punishment and my pride can only take so much abuse before I bow my head to the greater power of my predicament. Namely hunger.

Hunger is a terrifying thing that only those who know it's frigid caress would understand why someone as proud and as unyielding as myself would bow down to this madness that was going on around me. I was by no means starved. I was, however, an inferior at the table of superiors. And like a good little inferior, I took what I was given without complaint, and thankful that even so much was given to me. Still, my eyes and my nose cannot keep me from wishing that I had a bit of what they had. Tunie usually made crepes on Saturdays for breakfast. Dudders always got these perfectly cooked, rounded and just the right amount buttered bits of heaven that made my heart and stomach ache in that familiar, nostalgic ways. Mine were either too thick and undercooked or too thin and slightly burned. And always less. I ate mine plain. Dudders ate his with creme, with icrecream, or whatever the hell he wanted.

That kind of thing, especially overtime, ruins even the best of us.

Crepes was the first recipe I ever learned to make. I pride myself with my cooking. My mother was always busy at work with her company and home cooked meals were a rarity, even though we lived in a house not much different than this one, though larger, with three stories and in a prestigious neighbourhood in Paris. Mother used to love my crepes. And here I was, watching Tunie serving her little family those same perfect crepes, that very same recipe that I had first learned. And my mouth would salivate, looking at them, and I'd chew bitterly on my own imperfect ones that were served with the exact opposite of the love and attention Dudders and Vernie got.

Oh how the Lady Fate loved her sweet, sweet irony. Oh how she stuffed the damn guilt and nostalgia down my throat with my cup of plain tap water and subpar, undercooked breakfast. Because it was not the hunger that grinded my insides so painfully, but the fact that this had been me, once upon a time. The hunger just brought that little, spiteful monster bubbling just beneath the surface. It was cruel, it was inhumane in the way how this little personal hell was executed, just the right amounts of guilt, nostalgia and self hatred. And, boy, did I hate all of it.

I was yet too small to do anything about this and I knew better than to lay all these negative emotions onto Tunie, Vernie and Dudders. There was too much context that I was missing and between my bouts of crippling depression on top of periods of existential crises(yes, this is plural), I had plenty of time on my hands to get ahold of whatever was going on around me.

Words are a powerful thing. Listen long enough, intently enough, and you are bound to learn things. People are the most loose-lipped when they think no one is paying attention or listening to them. As such I used this fact to the best of my ability and bid my time.

Words have power. In this household the greatest power was held by the word Normal. In this household, I was Freak. And Freak, in it's own right, held almost as much power and had the potential- No, it had the opportunity to become more powerful than the word Normal. It all lay in their Fear, in their Hatred and in their reverent Adoration of everything they turned their son into – the very manifestation of Normal.


	2. Cats

We have a new neighbour. Well. I think it's a new neighbour because Tunie and Vernon haven't talked about her yet and Tunie knows everything that goes on in a 20 miles radius. There is no gossip, rumor or whisper that hasn't gotten to her ears. I'm grudgingly impressed, to be honest, because Tunie makes gathering information look like child's play. She also has an impecable sense of what is normal and what considered to be less than normal which means that I often end up using her as my trouble radar. Despite her status as a housewife, Tunie's packing some brains in that horse-faced noggin of hers. Sadly, her brains are used mostly on the best ways to utilize whatever she had learned over the course of the day.

Vernie spends most of his time at work and has a set schedule that I've yet to see change in any meaningful way. He gets up in the morning, Tunie serves him breakfast, he goes to work, leaving Tunie and Dudders with the likes of me and returning home in the late afternoon, looking more or less less pleased than he had been in the morning. I don't know what Vernie does for a living, but I can make an educated guess and go with some sort of well paying desk job that also brought about some amount of stress. Tunie always makes him chamomile tea that may or may not contain a drop or two of whiskey, depending on how bemused he is when he gets out of his car.

On weekends Tunie and Vernie usually go on picnics with Dudders and I, though I try my best to be as invisible as possible, if only because Dudders does everything in his power to ruin my outside clothes, which were all some sort of simple dresses that Tunie had picked out for me. Surprisingly enough, most of my clothes weren't Dudders' handmedowns. Tunie maintained that proper, normal girls wear dresses and are as polite as possible. Of course, said dresses are kept under lock and key at home and used only when they absolutely have to take me out with them. At home I wear some of Dudders' overalls and T-shirts that somehow Tunie managed to shrink or modify enough to fit me. She doesn't like it, mainly because she hates having to do anything for me. I don't like it either, because most of what I wear was at least two sizes too big and Tunie didn't bother herself to do a good enough job fixing said clothing to fit me a bit better. It's demeaning and it's a reminder that I am a second-hand citizen in this household. But, most of all, it's annoying.

I've never really been fond of dresses, if only because I feel constrained by the fact that if I try to be physically more active for a while, the dress would either get ripped, or somebody would get a moonfull of my white panty clad private bits. And both prospects are quite undesirable. On the other hand if I don't do anything, Dudders would catch me and ruin my dress anyways, either with grass stains, mud or chocolate, all of which are a bitch to clean up and have the high probability of getting Tunie to punish me in some way for causing her undue work.

In short, it was a catch 22 situation and I was stuck smackdab in the middle of it, waiting for Dudders to stop eating so we could finally go and visit the new neighbour I meantioned earlier. I was tense, I was painfully aware of just how many things Dudders could get his hands on on our way to the new neighbour's house that he could use to ruin my dress and, worst of all, I was aware that both Tunie and Vernie had already prepared the slandering campaign that would instantly cause any adult in the vicinity to either dismiss or disapprove of me for the sheer audacity of existing in their perfect little world.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the full body mirror near the door in the same hallway where my sleeping arrangements were (the cupboard under the stairs). I was a tiny thing with pale skin (too pale! Unhealthy!Sickly!Sallow!). The green dress I was wearing did nothing to improve my complexion. It was a horrible color and mayhap Tunie had tried to color coordinate with my eyes but it was such a wrong shade of pale green that it really did nothing more than ruin my mood further. Then there were my overly large green eyes that sat perched on my face, all glossy and sullen, under thick black eyebrows, glaring judgmentally back at me. Then there was that thick black, uncontrollable mop of hair that Tunie had tried her best to tame all the while keeping my bangs in my face in a desperate attempt to hide the hideous lightnight shaped scar on my forehead that will forever stay this angry red color, if my luck so far in this life was any indication. To be honest I was still on the fence about whether I tolerated it or hated it. It was another thing to set me apart from the Normal, but it was also shaped like the Flash' sign which was kind of cool. It also kind of looked like the sun rune, though I haven't really looked up that kind of stuff in so many years that it was just a speculation at this point. I used to love researching languages and the origins of words. In a sense I still do. Right now, however, whatever shape or meaning the scar on my forehead had, it would be little to no help in the upcomming meeting with the new neighbour.

I will be presented as the household's baggage to gain sympathy, then they'd explain my tragic backstory, and then, I'd get dismissed for Dudders to antagonize me. Adults love to dismiss children, which had always pissed me off to no end in my past life and it continues to do so in this one as well. Dismissal means Dudders will get me in trouble, and anything he does or breaks will be automatically blamed on me, no exceptions.

No matter how angry or frustrated I get, I just can't blame it on Dudders. He is a child and I have soft spot for children. Nowadays, I call that soft spot masochism, considering any and all of the children in Little Whinging that I've met so far were more or less a variation of the little monster that was Dudders. Parents were either blind or allowed it to happen. My original distrust of all adults was slowly turning into seething loathing and there was so little I could consciously do about it.

"Come on girl! We haven't got all day to wait for you to admire that bird's nest you call hair!" Tunie grabbed my arm and unceremoniously dragged me out the door.

I didn't say anything because that would lead to further reprimands.

The new neighbour's house was within walking distance which made me cheer up slightly. It meant I could stay behind Tunie, Vernie and Dudders and that meant I could get out of Dudders' shennanigans at least for the duration of the walk.

This house, like any other house on Privet Drive, looked exactly the same, save for the few signs and posters that depicted the house as "For Sale!". Other neighbours were here already, which, of course, made Tunie slightly disgruntled for not being first. Woman's the competetive sort for all the wrong things and all the wrong reasons. I found that amusing and slightly endearing, all things considered. It was also important, because it meant that if I was able to help her out in her competitiveness against the other housewives, she might be a bit more acceptable to my presence. The more acceptable I become, the easier it would be for me later on in life.

I was not generally ambitious when it came to normal things, but being reborn in a time that was considered the not so distant past in my original life meant that I had knowledge of things to come that I could put to good use. At my current age of four years old I was particularly useless in the department of pretty much everything. My tiny hands had trouble grasping things mainly because they were just so big and I had been quite used to being a fully functional adult (my therapist would probably beg to differ). Most of the time Tunie had a reason to be angry with me, especially because I came across as a particularly clumsy small child.

Because I was clumsy when we reached the front door, Tunie turned around towards me and grabbed me by the shoulder in case I managed to trip over my own feet again. If the action also came across as some form of affection, all the better for Tunie's image.

"Girl, you will sit still and remain silent unless spoken to!" Vernie turned towards me with these instructions.

"Yes, sir!" I nodded then turned towards the front door as it opened.

It was a middle aged woman that immediately came across as a bit kooky and I knew in this instant that Tunie's perfect, welcoming smile became frozen on her face as the same realization that hit me hit her as well. I did not need to see it to know that the hand she had wrapped around Vernie's impressive biceps was now holding on for dear life. Vernie was yet to figure out exactly what was going on but I chucked that down to the fact that he was not privy to the desperate housewives' wars that was going on around Little Winging. Tunie's winning, by the way.

"Good day to you, my new neighbors!" the woman exclaimed politely as she played with the handkerchief in her hand in a rather nervous way. She was smiling in that polite, slightly jittery way that spoke of a person that felt nervous in crowded areas, particularly when surrounded by strangers. As a slight breeze picked up I couldn't help but notice the oh so faint smell of what I surely knew to be cat pee.

I pieced together the facts. Kooky new neighbor that, according to Tunie, was single, of middle age, and has moved in in the last three days. The faint scent of cat piss, along with one quick look down the hall to confirm the presence of at least three felines worming their way around the other neighbors' feet pretty much sealed the deal. This woman was now officially our Friendly Neighborhood Crazy Cat Lady.

"Good day to you as well!" Vernie replied a bit too jovially, trying to leave a good first impression. "We are the Dursleys. I am Vernon Dursleys and this here are my lovely wife Petunia and this adorable little man here is Dudley!"

So proud of his family, that one. Bleh.

"My name is Arabella Figg, a pleasure to meet you all! But, oh my, who is this lovely little girl?"

Vernie, well, it's Vernon now, seeing as that was his actual name, tried to answer but Tunie, who's already proven herself to be a master gossip-monger, took the proverbial podium in an attempt to salvage the situation. After all, Vernon forgot to introduce me and that was a big deal since normal people notice if you bring two children and only introduce one of them. This was also the first time I was to be introduced and, consequently, this was also the first time I'd hear my own name.

"This is Harrietta, my late sister's girl. After her death and that of my brother-in-law, we have been the only family she has left. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree if you catch my meaning." Petunia's tone became softer, quieter, more conspiratory, as if preventing me to hear her. "Her father was a bad sort, the girl takes after him but we do try."

After that I promptly lost interest in the conversation. There was nothing new in there for me. I had more important, more immediate problems to deal with. First of all, apparently I do have a name and that name is Harrietta. It was not Freak, it was not Girl and it was most certainly not Useless Leech, though I've contemplated many times to introduce myself as such, if only out of spite and to get the Dursleys in trouble. I often entertain such thoughts but rarely act on them. I don't have anywhere to hide or avoid their wrath and punishments, not to mention I've yet to receive the freedom of roaming around the streets.

Harrietta was a horrible name. No, really! It was really horrible and old fashioned and I was sure to be bullied in school because of it. I was to receive bullying in any case, given the fact that Dudley ( a great improvement from Dudders) was slowly but surely getting himself at the top of the toddler pyramid of power in Little Winging. Soon he will realize that mommy and daddy can't get him absolutely everything he wants and that's when he'd start recruiting minions and make my life even more miserable. I had to nip that natural progression of things in the bud and I had to do it soon and under Petunia's nose on top of that. Petunia's the freaking Eye of Sauron sometimes, I swear.

Dudley ran off to somewhere, probably just as bored as I with the adult conversations. In mind I might be an adult as well but I was a small, young child in body and I had no business playing pretend and bothering people when Vernon was anywhere in the vicinity. Instead I looked around the house, curious as to what I'd find. As a typical Crazy Cat Lady, the Figg woman had cat pictures everywhere. I tried to find anything that would give me some clues as to what exactly I'd be dealing with so I can tell Petunia later to earn some positive points with the woman. Whether she'd appreciate my efforts was yet to be seen but I had nothing to lose by trying either way.

I didn't find much and what I found wasn't really interesting. Woman had been here for no more than three days so either she had no time to set up everything yet or she just didn't care so much about personal affects as she did about catering to her cats. And speaking of the cats, there was something to be said of the fact that they weren't some random strays the woman had picked up. I saw an impressive looking Norwegian Forest cat that may or may not have been crossbred with a Maine Coon somewhere down its genealogy. In fact, I think almost all of the cats were some form of bred cat or a specific crossbreed of domesticated felines that were quite striking and beautiful. I saw a spotted feline that may or may not have been an ocicat.

The Figg woman was most likely a cat breeder and by the looks of all the cats, I think she might be even trying to create new breeds as well. While I like animals, most of my knowledge on cats was comparatively superficial compared to other parts of the Animal kingdom, such as reptiles and, more specifically, dinosaurs. Still, the Crazy Cat Lady is a cat breeder. Petunia will be busy removing cat hairs from Vernon's suit tonight and she will be in a particularly turbulent mood about it too. I took stock of my own silly green dress and immediately spotted a few stray cat hairs. I haven't even touched anything! Swiftly I removed what I could and made it a point to be more careful. The last thing I needed was for Petunia to yell at me as well.

If you haven't guessed yet, the Dursleys do not like animals. Or rather, Petunia dislikes animals to the point of having them almost completely banned from the household. Of course, she never says anything when that She-giant, Vernon's big sister Marge comes over with her English Bulldogs. So far I've seen her twice and I've spent the entire time hiding because Petunia instructed me to be as out of sight as possible. Vernon is of a more amicable disposition that Marge by a long shot and I'm just glad I don't have to deal with her for more than a few days a year.

The Dursleys spent about two hours in Figg's house. Figg kept staring at me when she thought nobody would see it, including myself. I was glad this whole thing was over without incident and without Dudders, I mean Dudley, ruining my dress for once. I kept picking off cat hairs from my dress all the way back to our house. Dudley was eating some sort of chocolate cake snack which was generally Petunia's way of dealing with his tantrums before they had a chance to pop up and embarrass her in front of the enemy, I mean the other neighborly housewives.

Petunia would start working on dinner and Vernon and Dudley would sit in front of the telly in the meantime. To be honest, this whole endeavor was marked with very minor success, all things considered. Petunia will be removing cat hairs, for which I would volunteer to help her. The sooner she sees some sort of worth with having me in the household, the sooner I'd have a chance to improve my situation. So far of all four of us, myself and Petunia were the least afflicted by the cat hairs and Dudley's outfit was completely covered. Vernon's suit jacket was no better. I thought back to the snacks and other refreshments that the Figg woman had prepared. Despite the prospect of free food I made sure not to touch any of that. She had cats running amok and the last thing I wanted was to get afflicted with parasitic protozoa from an unchecked cat breeder. I never saw any certificates of ownership or anything indicating the health status of the woman's pets. Judging from Petunia's sour expression, she must've come to a similar conclusion.

That evening Dudley and myself shared a bath with Petunia scrubbing the both of us raw. The next day she had Vernon get an appointment with their family doctor. The following week she had the whole house decontaminated from anything and everything she deemed unclean or contagious, which, luckily for me, also included my cupboard.


	3. Scars always linger on the inside

_**A/N: Chapter 3 is here and this is my first author's note. I've found myself a Beta! This chapter is brought to you nice and checked by the Arcane Charmcaster, who asked very nicely to be my beta, which, of course, I gladly accepted. Usually the Dark part of mylife, namely my sister, is the one doing the checking, but Real Life leaves us busier in comparison to our school days. Please Enjoy!**_

It's strange looking at the mirror and still feeling like a stranger in my own skin. To be honest I don't look at myself often. I have many concerns that are far more important than my looks as a five or so year old.

It's strange... It feels strange how time flies so quickly and how I keep looking for reminders from my other life. It's always the little things that get to you. Sometimes, when the telly is on and the news are up it almost feel like back home with my Mom and Dad and just playing with my Lego blocks while mom is studying for her exams. I think that was back when we still lived in Brooklyn. Those are some hazy years though. I remember these moments by the telly with great fondness because neither Mom or Dad were around me all that often, always so busy trying to build a career. I was happy just sitting quietly by their side, happy that they were home with me.

Why did things go so wrong afterwards? I regret not reconciling with them. I regret a lot of things from the life before. What was I supposed to do now? How was I supposed to act, how was I supposed to interact with people? What did I want to do with my life? Why do I even remember? But...would I want to forget? No. I wouldn't. With the bad there was also so much good. Like the friends I had, the few of them that stayed by my side after everything was said and done. I miss them. I miss home. But most of all, I still miss my baby Ori so, so dearly. The anniversary of his death is coming soon. Had he lived, he would've been ten by now. He and my brother, Fynn, would've been the same age by now. Maybe they could've been friends.

Life isn't built on maybes.

I head out again to Vernon's car to get the last grocery bag. Five year olds should not be burdened with something so heavy, but I make the effort anyways, knowing that staying in the Dursleys' good graces would depend on how reliable I was at whatever chores they have me do. So far Petunia hasn't deemed me old enough to be around cleaning detergents for which I was somewhat grateful. Small children are notorious at developing allergies and reactions to various chemicals they come in contact with and the last thing I was was to deal with atopic dermatitis, skin lesions, rashes and what not on top of everything else.

Vernon is in a good mood today. There've been talks of getting him promoted sometime in September and everyone in the household (except Dudley, of course) was doing their best to keep Vernon as stress-free at home as possible. Petunia by cooking and myself by helping her in anyway I can think of, which, as I stated before, included bringing the grocery bags from the car into the kitchen. It's not much for an adult, but I am a five year old and the last bag had me panting heavily by the time I got it to the kitchen. Petunia took it from my arms and started setting the food items into the fridge.

I think Dudley is playing with his toys upstairs. I've been working on that kid for the past few months. Nothing too obvious of course. The last thing I want was for him to babble to his parents about my Machiavellian ways and get me locked up in the cupboard again without dinner. I'd hate to break my current record for being cupboard free, which would make three months and two days. Given that he learns from his parents' behavior, Dudley has been trying to bully me now and then but because he is so lazy and used to others doing things for him, he also happens to be ridiculously easy to distract. When he throws things at me or pushes me aside or whatever else he can think of to showcase his status as the littlest Alpha male in the house, I'd ignore him. However, whenever he actually attempts polite (what passes as polite for Dudley) human interaction, I give him my full attention. It also helps that I call him boss on occasion.

Dudders thrives on praise. He also thrives on others doing things for him. So I am more or less his personal indentured servant for calling him down for breakfast, helping him clean his room (read that as me, solo, cleaning his room). Besides all of that, my lofty goal with Dudley is to get to a point where he completely forgets about me being his bully target. Being my peer (at least physically) having Dudley off my back will consequently have his parents less on my case and thus allow me greater freedoms over time.

Before I would have never been this placid with such living arrangements. I have a track record that went well beyond regular munchkinry and well into the hellspawn field of the child behavior spectrum. Before I would've thrown a tantrum, I would've caused a scene at any given opportunity to return the favor for whatever perceived slight had been done to me. I've thought about getting the child services on Petunia and Vernon's cases. However, would the results of that give me a better prospect than what I have available right now?

The answer to that is a clear no.

Even with my current second-hand citizen situation, I still have a better chance of succeeding in life than if I am sent to an orphanage or a foster family of some sort. I've already spent three or so years in Little Whinging, thus managing to establish at least some sort of rapport with the neighbors and I have a decent enough idea about the general layout of the town. Furthermore Privet Drive is a safe neighborhood. There are police officers patrolling at night, I've seen the car lights passing the street at night a few times. Nobody litters and I've yet to hear of any significant crime activity. In gaming terms, Little Whining could be considered to be the ideal starter zone. In real life terms, LittleWhinging's schools were very, very prestigious and known for their quality tutelage. I was looking forward to that.

In my previous life, I finished high school when I was fifteen. I am smart, I am very smart, with an impressive IQ that has had me initially lined up for some of the best universities in the world. My parents were very well off and capable of providing me with the best education had I felt the want for it. Of course, there is always trouble brewing, even in what one could consider paradise. My parents were very restrictive. I wanted to go out and have adventures, I wanted to make a career out of being a successful gamer and vlogger, which was already starting to pan out given that I was a moderately adorable girl who also happened to be good at games.

My parents disapproved of that. After a particularly vicious argument when I was thirteen, my parents suspended all of my accounts in the various games I was playing and took away my computer. In retaliation I caused trouble at school, refused to do my assignments and got into trouble with my classmates who already thought little of me for not being a girly girl. At the time I was already three years ahead of my peers and there was a boy who I had met and who was somewhat understanding of my constant bids for freedom. He took it upon himself to keep me safe from the bullies (though one could argue I had been the biggest bully) and when I had been expelled for my really, really poor behavior, he left that prestigious, private school and followed me into a normal government high school.

Of course his parents hadn't been thrilled. I wasn't thrilled either that he had been caught up into the backlash of my actions but a larger part of me felt warm and giddy inside that someone in this damn city had actually cared about me. It was only a bonus that he lived relatively close by to my own home.

When we finished high school he immediately got into Harvard. I had been fifteen, almost sixteen at the time and we had only but a single summer left together before he'd have to leave me all on my own to the wolves and my parents. That boy, Leo, had been my first. He had been my first friend, my first crush, my first kiss... my first everything.

And then, when he left, he took everything from me as well.

Perhaps...

Perhaps a little bit more background information is in order to understand what exactly had happened. Apart from Leo I had a group of friends who more or less lived all over the world, were almost universally older than me and we had all initially met during one of my visits in the Louvre. Of them only one was younger than me. Her name was MJ. Well, Michelle Jessica Keats, but to me she was MJ, or Michael. She was British and she used to have an older brother. He died protecting her. I never really asked her for details. They were not important. Her brother lay dead and my inquisitiveness would have only spat on his grave and her grief. I respected her far too much to go digging so disrespectfully into old wounds. Then there was Tifa, who was this soldier woman. She was all muscle, rough around the edges and her hair had gone white after one too many missions.

Among my friends was also a red haired woman who had a role in everything that happened after I graduated high school. Her name was Rose and it was she that got Leo into deciding to study law in Harvard. She was seven years older than me and four years older than him but when they met, they had just clicked so well together. I should've known not to mess things up, but I never really thought what Leo was to me after everything that happened.

It hurts thinking about this. It hurts thinking about them and how they are probably so happy with each other, while I still suffer. I hate them. I hate myself for hating them. I hate myself for stooping so low to hate them. It's not their fault. Perhaps Leo's, but it doesn't matter anymore, now does it? Leo knocked me up and married Rose. Now Ori is dead and I am dead, and now I live in a world where I'm not even born yet. It doesn't matter anymore. None of my grief and turmoil and pain matters anymore.

But I can't let it go. And it still tears me up on the inside.

I am tired.

"Girl! Call Dudders down for lunch!" Petunia ordered as she placed the last of the plates on the table.

"Yes, Auntie Petunia." I answered quietly and respectfully with a little curtsy and headed upstairs.

Petunia has been teaching me proper girly behavior. My mother would've had a heart attack that I am actually listening and sponging all of that into my little five year old noggin. It's not like a have much of a choice here. It's either that or be treated like some sort of leper afflicted with the Bubonic Plague. At this point, so long as I am treated better than Ripper whenever Aunt Marge comes over, I'd be relatively happy.

As I stood before Dudley's toy room's door, I knocked quietly, three times.

"Cousin? Auntie Petunia wants you to come down for lunch."

I quickly moved away from the door and my back hugged the wall as Dudley rushed out of the room and down the stairs akin to a one-child woolly mammoth stampede. I followed down at a much more sedate pace than his own. As I came down the stairs I took a deep breath, savoring the smell of Petunia's cooking. I had to hand it to the woman, she was a brilliant cook and all of her dishes were always something she had seen in popular magazines. I wondered if she'd consider making her own cookbook with a compilation of her recipes. As a housewife she had very little to do once she was done cooking and cleaning. Well, very little to do except for gossiping and watching moronic soap operas and dramas on the telly when Dudley wasn't watching his cartoons.

Neither myself nor Dudley went to kindergarten. As a matter of fact, none of the children on Privet Drive went to kindergarten, considering their mothers were predominantly housewives and their husbands more or less a variety of Vernon's own lifestyle. As such we spent the majority of our days staying by Petunia's side, visiting other housewives and playing with their children. Or, rather, Dudley playing with the other children and myself reluctantly observing them. Dudley I could handle on his lonesome, but there was something intimidating about tackling a whole group of rambunctious children. All of which had no qualms about pushing me about, pulling my hair, calling me names and laughing at me in all of their glorious child brand of cruelty that passed as the youthfulness of boys to their doting mothers.

It was obvious why I showed such great interest in the proper serving of tea each and every time I could get away with it. Mrs. Polkiss called it my only redeeming trait. Petunia says they may make a proper lady out of me yet and I tried my best not to snort at her pained, heartfelt declaration, as if I was some charity case that she was so concerned about.

Petunia may not be a brilliant actress but she knew how to place just enough emphasis on a conversation to make it sound genuine. She also knew how to read people's nonverbal ques and, had she been a woman with better nerves, she would've been brilliant at willingly extorting information out of people. As it was, Petunia was slightly neurotic with the incessant need for everything to be in its specific place. I'd call it OCD, but her blind eye towards Dudley's desperate need for proper parenting spoke otherwise. She followed some sort of set rules in her head that corresponded with a successful life. And she was such a try-hard about it too. This Idée fixe

of hers explained a lot of things to me.

Petunia used to have a strained relationship with my mother who was her sister. She used every opportunity she could get to one-up me as if I was her sister and she also did everything in her power to explain just how bad an apple I was from the freaks of parents I had. This venting of hers spoke of years and years of jealousy and turmoil caused by a person that I didn't even remember. Her words were always the same. Freak. Unnatural. Scumbag of a father. Reckless mother. Once I removed these words from her repertoire, it was somewhat easy to build an idea of what was going on, at least from her point of view.

My mother married someone who was more successful, more handsome and more talented than Vernon. My mother was happily married and in a way that made Petunia extremely jealous and angry. My mother and father's death made Petunia so satisfied that she was finally the more successful one and at the same time even more angry that now she had to deal with me – the very product of everything Petunia hated.

There are no pictures of Petunia's family in the house. Not on the walls, not on the bedside tables, not in albums. There were no picture of Petunia's parents, my grandma and grandpa Evans (it was an accident I learned Petunia's maiden name was Evans). In short, Petunia had left her life behind and had thrown away anything and everything that was related to her sister in anyway and had started a life completely on her own with Vernon.

Petunia reminded me of myself sometimes. Especially because it was what I did. I wondered if my mother in this life was the younger sibling. I wondered if Petunia felt like me when Fynn, my brother, came into the picture and suddenly everything and anything in the household had been about him. A little Fiona 2.0 that was a better, more refined model than the original. That my parents , armed with the terrible experience of me in their life, would have the ease and the privilege to raise properly and not like me.

I didn't hate my brother. Neither did I hate my parents. They had hurt me though. They had hurt me so much that I could not stand staying there to the point of moving to the U.S., in the middle of nowhere, where I could finally find the cold air to breathe and relax the suffocating feeling that my life had left me with. Apparently it hadn't helped me as it had helped Petunia. After all, I was pretty sure I ended my own life, which explains why I am in this Fresh Prince Hell of a Purgatory.

I ended up staring at myself in the mirror again before going to bed in my cupboard under the stairs. I looked like such a moody and sullen child. My dark, unruly hair, my almost unnaturally large eyes and my thick eyebrows, creased in that particular way that I remembered from the life before... My depression had followed me into this new life. I couldn't let it control me, not when my survival depended on my attention to my surroundings and the people in it.

It didn't make me any less tired or stressed out, but such was my life now. I'd take a breather when the opportunity presented itself to me. Until then, I'd sleep when I'm dead. Well, figuratively. It was an expression I think suited my current situation. It was survival of the fittest out here and I was nothing but a wriggling worm under the feet of not so benevolent giants.


	4. I am an Artist and War is my Art

Do you know what is the textbook definition of crazy? It's talking to yourself. But then again, if you doubt your own sanity and are concerned that you may or may not be completely sane, then you're unlikely to actually be insane. Or so I've heard. As things stand inside my head, it's more of a Catch 22 situation than any actual mental illness developing itself. Or at least I hope so.

Today's reason for my perfectly reasonable existential crisis was Petunia's cooking. Petunia Dursley is many things, one of which is being a facebook cook. Seeing as we are currently in the 80ies and the internet isn't even a thing yet, let alone facebook (a big mental shout out to Mark Zuckerberg, everyone!), the term facebook cook would be both highly anachronistic as well as nonsensical if not applied with the aforementioned foreknowledge of the future that is to be and that also happens to be my past, in a way.

Being a child, an unwanted child, in a household that does the bare minimum to keep me healthy and fed, one has to think really hard about what to do to pass the time without wondering whether or not the roof was high enough for me to mercy kill myself to escape the boredom. And, no, the roof isn't, even if I am a small child. Furthermore I have no easy access to said roof, nor the muscle to pull Vernon's ladder to get me up there. And I think Petunia would notice the noise long before she sees me dragging that wretchedly heavy thing.

Ah, but such are the ways of semantics and details of things that don't really matter in the long run because they aren't happening one way or the other. I digress.

I've also thought about slitting my wrists in the bathroom, but Petunia would sniff out the blood or notice me gone for too long before that plan would be effective. The same results would be achieved by hanging myself from the ceiling lamp in the Living room. It's the only one with relatively good support that'd both handle my weight and would be high enough to actually commence with the hanging itself. However, and aren't there just so many little tiny details and buts in everything I think of? I digress!

Successfully planning one's own death is a morbid kind of entertainment that has kept the worst of the boredom at bay, at least. It's a problem solving pass-time that, while distasteful, has given me ample opportunity to take stock of most of the areas of the house that I had access to, as well as keep my mind sharp and ready for anything that would be out of the ordinary.

Things classified as out of the ordinary in this household were different for the likes of Petunia and, of course, for the likes of me. Petunia's definition for out of the ordinary included a all manner of supernatural things that had me scoff because, if this tendency of hers was excluded, Petunia would otherwise be a rather shrewd, no nonsense woman that took her gossiping housewife skills Very Seriously. With capital letters. That discrepancy in her behavior has had me at wits' end for months. What was even worse, however, was that I couldn't simply go through whatever books, magazines or any other written material was out there for information. Normal five year olds, even ones with 24 years of past life experience, could not and did not read unless an adult had taught them to do so.

Petunia has been trying with Dudley but I am well on the spectator side of things, though Petunia has noticed me paying close attention. If push comes to shove, she could easily pass my critical views of her substandard parenting as an attempt to learn things. The telly is useful, but not with information that I need right now, specifically. All of this is very frustrating.

So... my failure to progress things at the speeds I am used to aside, I could say my life is going rather well. I am all but invisible to Vernon, though I think he finds me unnerving. I understand him though. After all, I've seen myself in the mirror and my large green judgmental eyes can be quite disturbing with my constantly scowling eyebrows, thick little black caterpillars that they are. I can't help it most of the time, though. I have a tiny existential crisis more or less every day, mostly because of the psychological trauma of remembering my past life. Dudley is very much like what I used to be but in the form of a spoiled little boy with doting, loving parents. Where mine had said no, his usually said yes, even to his most outlandish requests. Vernon had the money to feed his little boy's whims and Petunia was so blindly devoted to her boys, Vernon and Dudley, that it terrified me. And I am not a person that gives in to any form of fear. Except to when it comes to hospitals but that is a story for another time.

When I looked at Dudley, I saw both myself and a terrible, selfish monster in the making. And, like I said earlier, that terrified me. Children were such amazing creatures, really. They had the infinite potential to become and be anything, to believe and understand things so altruistic and ideal that nobody else but children could make sense of them. Such was the beauty of innocence and the power of youth that fueled an ever striving thirst for knowledge and improvement. Dudley, for all the faults he was going to surely develop in the next few years, was no exception to that. True, he seemed a bit on the simple side, but, to someone of my intellect, a lot of people seemed to be simple. I have learned not to look down on people, though it had taken me admittedly a very long time to do so and thus I spent the majority of my first early childhood completely friendless. I was an arrogant and selfish little thing back then and the world was mine to use and abuse. And hadn't that been exhilarating, until it wasn't anymore and everything just seemed to keep crashing down and... and then I ended up here. Somehow. Mayhap by my own hand and by my own weakness.

No! I will not think upon this for now. I needed to focus on a much bigger problem. I had to figure out what to do with Dudley and with the Dursleys in general before my only way out of certain abuse became obsolete.

Dudley's strengths lay in his surprisingly high physical aptitude. He was strong and well developed for a child his age, with stamina and strength that were obviously from his father. At the same time, despite his destructive tendencies, I've managed to spot a pattern in his play style, which lead me to believe he had, at the very least, inherited some of his mother's obsessive meticulousness. Just like everyone else in the world, including myself, Dudley was a creature of habit, and as such, after a while it was easy to spot things that agitated him, things that excited him, and, most importantly, things that calmed him down and kept me out of harm's way.

Dudley is easy to distract, but not because he is that simple, but because of his nurtured laziness and the priorities he placed on his indulgences over anything and everything else. The most important thing to Dudley was Dudley. The most important thing to Vernon and Petunia Dursley was also Dudley. Dudders himself knew that on an instinctual level at this point and he really loved his position as Number One, or, as I liked to call him in my mind, the Littlest Alpha in the household. I, on the other hand, was the least important member and thus a subject to a number of demeaning behaviors, mostly verbal, and I took them as silently and as patiently as I could, focused on the fact that this was survival of the fittest, Urban style, and that I had to bide my time until I was actually capable of doing something about my situation.

"Bah! It's broken!" Dudley whined as he threw his newest Starscream aside and I cringed as I watched my poor favourite Decepticon crash onto the wall behind my rambunctious cousin. A second later the dislodged arm followed and I carefully and slowly stood up to pick them both up, hoping that this won't redirect Dudley's ire towards me.

"Why are you touching my toys?" he asked loudly and I cringed.

"I'm fixing it." I said quietly, walking over to him, one hand holding Starscream's arm and the other the rest of him. I slowly sat down next to Dudley, hoping his silence to mean him allowing me to do so. I pressed the arm back into its socket with a bit of effort and it popped back in. There was nothing I could do about the chipped paint, though and, with some heartache, I placed Starscream next to his almost equally abused leader, Megatron.

I dared a look at Dudley, who seemed to be really deep in thought, as his expression was akin to one causing someone extreme discomfort and some amount of pain. I hoped against hope that he won't make it a game of throwing and breaking any more Decepticons for the entertainment of watching me pick them up and fix them. I was not a dog, after all and even if I get punished for this, I'd not get so low as to dog about Dudley's whims.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Petunia lingering by the Arch into the hallway that lead to the kitchen. I swallowed nervously, though I tried my best to be discreet as possible with my anxiousness.

"Can you fix Op'imus as well?" I noted he couldn't pronounce Optimus correctly, but then again Optimus Prime is a mouthful for a child of five that was more or less not interested in mental stimulation.

"I can try." I said hesitantly. My heart was beating loudly into my ears at this point. Could it be? Was it possible that I was finally making a decent social contact with my little gorilla cousin, Dudley? Would Petunia allow this? This was nerve-wracking on so many levels.

Dudley stood up and made his way upstairs and I finally gathered the courage to turn and look at Petunia. She stood there in the hallway, eyeing me critically, with arms crossed over her chest. I did not say anything, nor did my gaze linger as I turned to look at the stairs, nervously anticipating my cousin's return. He came back down a few moments later, though they felt like an eternity.

Optimus' leg was dislodged and he had a piece of armor missing from one of his arms. This probably happened while he was trying to make them transform into their alternate forms. I wondered if I'd be able to find said missing armor piece. True, he probably wouldn't be able to transform properly, but we could at least glue the piece back into place. Who am I kidding? Anything broken would be discarded and a new toy would take its place. Objects had zero sentimental value in this house. The only value fell onto the usefulness of said object and just value existed until there was any use left.

I popped the leg back into place and pressed some of the plastic parts to secure the leg a bit better. Still, it was obvious this repair wouldn't hold as well as Starscream's emergency arm fixing, but it would do until a new Optimus Prime could become available come Monday. It was Friday afternoon right now and Vernon was still at work.

I positioned Optimus' limbs in such a way that he would be able to stand on his own and placed him on Megatron's other side.

"One shall stand and one shall fall." I intoned seriously, pursing my lips at the thought of the epic struggle between the two alien robot leaders. I wondered if Petunia would let me watch Transformers: The Movie when it came out next year. There was a heavy, constricting feeling in my chest. I had watched that one for the first time with MJ, Leo and my cousin Harry. Harrison. Man, it was so confusing. One life I had a cousin named Harry and now I was the cousin named Harry in this life, with Dudley being me or some sort of weird version of me or something. It was creepy and crazy, and existential crisis inducing.

Moving on!

"Make them fight now!" Dudley suddenly exclaimed or ordered, rather. A quick sneak peak at Petunia later, I straightened my back at Dudley's attention and wordlessly took stock of what transformers Dudley had at his disposal. As well as what other toys he had around him.

Dudley's a very boyish boy, in any sense of the word. He's straight forward, brash and almost rude when he can get away with it and then there's doting Mom Petunia when he can't. There are toy cars, transformers, a few dinosaurs (were the Dinobots a thing yet?) and some other child boy toy paraphernalia that could easily be set up for the most epic battle of the decade.

Why was I looking so forward to this? There was this anticipation building in me, that excitement right before the match starts and I'm mounted with the rest of my squad and... Oh. My chest and throat constricted painfully again as I tried to force myself to be calm again. I felt like crying and it was over this stupid little game Dudley wanted me to play. But at the same time, I felt this happiness bursting through me. It's been years. So many years since I had the chance to... to play Commander and Conqueror. There was no way to put it. I was a strategist and today... today the living room and Dudley's toys would be my battlefield and tools of the trade.

There were unequal amounts of Decepticons and Autobots, but the Autobots present were of the stronger variety, and given the other toy cars, trucks and what not, I could easily pass them off as Autobots or decepticons in a pinch. I had Jazz, Prowl and Ironhide at my disposal as well as Optimus Prime. Dudley didn't have Ratchet, though, which I think was a right shame. That was the Autobots' grumpy Medic. That right there was a missed opportunity if I ever saw one. It was simple really. Get Dudley hooked up with Ratched, get Dudley interested into Ambulances, thus interested in medicine one way or the other and before you know it, Dudley's an aspiring doctor. And military doctors were ridiculously well paid to boot!

Feeling more daring than what would be considered healthy for myself in this household, I took hold of Prowl and gave him a thorough once over. Prowl's paint was really busted in certain places, and some of the plastic corners were mightily chipped as well. Poor Prowl, I feel for you, mech! You and I ride the same boat in this neighborhood of Fresh Prince Hell. Ah well.

"Do you want to play Autobots or Decepticons?" I asked Dudley, who was watching me with interest. He definitely got that look from my dear aunt. I should know, I could feel the woman practically burning a hole through my head as we speak.

"Just make them fight!" Dudley repeated his order and I realized that while Dudley may have had a preference to use the Decepticons, he barely had any understanding of what an Autobot or a Decepticon was. That should be rectified. Immediately. Screw Petunia.

In general Autobots took on more child-friendly appearances, such as civilian oriented models, while the Decepticons were always some sort of military or scary looking vehicle. Then there was Megatron, the glorious Decepticon Leader, who happened to turn into a gun, which was supposed to give the allusion to children that the gun was the most dangerous thing of them all. Ah, the wonders of child psychology and politics intermingling!

From what I remember from back in the day, which would be nowadays in this life, Transformers fell into the purview of a certain American law that prevented people expressing violence against each other in child programs. That, of course, explains the mass production of child animated series that focused on robots, animals, aliens and monsters fighting each other in the most ridiculous and circumvent way of expressing violence. And then Transformers : The Movie happened. Oh, I still remember that first time I watched that thing. It was right after I ended my marathon of watching the first ever Transformers series and it had been such a die hard nerd, heart pounding experience! Optimus and Megatron were duking it out in a Duel of Fate, bringing both the best and the worst of each other and sprouting some of the most iconic pieces of one-liners that still move the masses over the internet to this day (of my future past, past future, oh screw it!). It was good versus evil, it was all the stops and inhibitions removed. It was Megatron and Optimus Prime beating the shit out of each other and it was poetic and glorious, and it was the wings on my back and that had been the thing that forever destroyed my understanding of Good and Evil as it had been spoon fed by the adults in my life and instead had it replaced with the fevered belief that no one was truly Evil, but neither were they truly Good as well. And then, then there was life and those too weak to take it!

I had wanted it all. I had wanted the glory, the adventure, the glamor. Everything. And, of course, being the arrogant little shit that I was, I just had to grab at it all at once and it all came down crashing on me. There was just so much of the world to experience. And, perhaps, I could show that to Dudley and help him avoid my mistakes. He was too much like me in some ways and that was why I was willing to risk Petunia's wrath for the sake of trying. After all, I'd never forgive myself if I didn't at least try.

There was a potential of greatness in everyone, one way or the other. It was there for me, it was there for Vernon and Petunia, and, certainly, it was there for Dudley himself. To know of this potential, to know that he'd have all these resources and opportunities before him and to let them go to waste...it was unthinkable!

With Jazz in one hand and Prowler in the other, with my mind made up and with Petunia's ever watchful gaze upon me completely forgotten, I set my first plan into action.

"Hey, Prowler!" I mimicked Jazz' voice as best as I could given that I was a 5 year old girl.

I sighed deeply, long-sufferingly, with my shoulders slumping as I turned Prowl to face Jazz with my hands.

"It's Prowl, Jazz. What is it that you want?"

And so it begins.


	5. Family

_**A/N: And yet another chapter, this time a lot of things are happening and I'm still worried some parts might be rushed. Again, huge thanks to my Beta Arcane Charmcaster who takes time out of his day to look over my writing and fix whatever mistakes I may have missed myself.**_

* * *

Aunt Petunia doesn't like it that I play with Dudley but at the same time she doesn't say anything. Why? It's simple. Dudley likes to order me around and I am smart enough to keep him entertained enough without breaking his toys. After all, if Dudley breaks anything, it's fine. If I happen to break anything or be accused of breaking anything, there would be punishment.

It's been three days since I started playing with Dudley. So far my efforts into turning our play time into something productive and educational for my cousin haven't had much success but it was just too early to give up, especially when I knew that patience was key. But what had I achieved in the last three days or so? Well, we now have a new Optimus Prime as well as a brand new Autobot medic, courtesy of Dudley whining about it. While I am not the greatest fan of Ratchet, he did serve me a purpose and that purpose was to teach Dudley important life lessons that both Vernon and Petunia seemed to neglect with gloriously religious conviction. One such lesson was about the consequences of our actions.

"If you throw Starscream again and he breaks, I don't think I would be able to fix it." I had told my cousin simply.

"But Dad would buy me a new one then." he said, smiling smugly about his reasoning.

It was hard to argue with that logic but Dudley was five. I was not. There were many ways and angles at which to tackle his logic. Of course, there'd be many more but that would require my Aunt Dearest to be out of earshot. Five year old girls, after all, shouldn't have a comprehensive understanding of the value and worth of things.

"But this Starscream's the one that fights for you." I finally settled with the guilt route. Guilt is a foreign emotion to Dudley and it would do him good to learn it. He'd be better off with the experience of it now that he was still very young and impressionable, when the consequences of his actions warranted nothing more but for Mommy and Daddy to take care of it.

"Yeah, so?"

"The other Starscream won't know how to fight as well."

Comprehension dawned on Dudley's face and he looked at the Starscream in my hands in a new light. It was... a strange experience for the both of us, I am certain. His eyebrows were locked in a deep, thoughtful scowl as his eyes swept across the room, taking in the rest of the toys in his room. Most of his toys did not last more than two weeks on average. A large portion of his older toys ended up in the spare room next to this one. There were piles and piles of toys there, which covered up a simple room with a single bed, a wardrobe and a desk with a chair. That room was one of my goals at the very least. It was there that I wanted to be moved to, away from that wretched cupboard under the stairs that reminded me all too much of my status within this household.

For now, earning Dudley's favor was my greatest concern. Making a decent human out of him in the process – now that was a side benefit, though just as important to me. Dudley was a child, and children, I've come to realize, were my weakness. Whether because of what happened with my son Ori or because of another reason, I do not know. Children should not bear the burden of their parents' decisions. Therefore, no matter the resentment I felt for the Dursleys that constantly haunted me, I had found steadfast resolve into accepting these people as part of my life and my family and thus I had to find a way to reach out to them. They would not meet me halfway, however, and as such, this was going to be a long, uphill battle.

Petunia does not trust me with Dudley on our lonesome. As such the door to Dudley's room was open and she often passed by, seemingly doing some cleaning or whatever chore she imagined in order to keep an eye on me. I've done nothing to earn the distrust she displayed, but that did not matter to her. Petunia was a suspicious woman by nature and her eyes did not miss a thing that went about in her household.

As much as this game of cat and mouse that I played with my aunt was keeping me as tense as possible and my nerves taut to near breaking point, I also found myself enjoying this. It was strange, I suppose. It was not an enjoyment so much as gratification from the results of my efforts. It was a challenge that shook the veil of despair off of my shoulders for hours on end, simply because my entire attention had been focused outward, towards all those little minute details of my surroundings as well as on my aunt's gestures and physical quirks that told me whether or not I'd be having a decent enough meal for dinner, to say the least.

Oh, my aunt Petunia was a smart woman, one of quiet strengths and even quieter anger that simmered gently just under the surface and that had been gathering intensity for many, many years before I had even entered the equation that was her understanding of her life and the universe about her. Petunia was a woman on a mission and that mission was to be better. Her competition came in many shapes and sizes. One day it would be the neighbors next door's very own housewife, the next it would be the housewife from three streets down. Then again, for a tea party or so, it would be Mrs. Polkiss with her strange preferences for tea that Petunia just loved to subtly insult with veiled underhanded comments that went straight over Mrs. Polkiss head. Then competition could also be aunt Marge, that vile woman, who seemed to try to control everything about Vernon's life whenever she dropped by in just the same way Vernon exerted his own form of control and authority over our household. The only difference was that Vernon merely indulged her patiently, for she was his older sister, and he liked to keep a certain rapport with her. Whatever form Petunia's competition took, it always dictated the course our household would take, as Vernon catered to Petunia's needs just as much as she catered to his and Dudley's.

The Dursleys were not a model family, no matter the facsimiles they paraded to the public. They were not bad people, either, even though they were marginally a very petty and shallow bunch in some aspects. They were not people I would normally had seen myself actively socializing with. Life had its ways to force certain situations, however, and thus I was stuck with them and with their frivolities towards whatever caught their fancy. Even so, the Dursleys were hardly the worst people I had ever met. They were certainly better in comparison to my own parents who rarely had time to even sit down together with me for dinner. It was one of their qualities that I admired about them, really. They were very tightly knit as a family unit and even if Petunia and Vernon did not love each other, they at least had some sort of affection between them and great enough respect that kept them not only together but thriving. They had a mutually beneficial partnership that had them live a comfortable, well-off life. Observing their daily activities from the sides as I often did, I found myself wistful and longing for that kind of life.

Perhaps, had things been different, this would have been myself, Leo and Orion, though not quite exactly in the same form as the Dursleys. Even if I had been given the privilege of raising my son, I still would've actively worked towards improving myself and pursuing a career, making something of myself as well as being a mother. I turned towards Dudley, still lost in my fantasies, and stopped myself from smiling softly at him. Children were such a wonderful gift. They were to be cherished, loved, and coddled as much as possible, but they were also to be prepared for this terrible, beautiful world of ours. Even if I cannot do this for my own son, there was no reason not to do this for Dudley.

* * *

Fall came and passed to give way to winter. My six years of age were finally deemed enough to allow both myself and Dudley a bit more freedom and, to my surprise, a few days ago Petunia had taken both myself and Dudley to buy us warm clothing for the season. I was excited to finally test out my new bright red winter coat. It was one of the few possessions that I really, really loved, as strange as it sounded. Usually Petunia did not take great care into what she'd be wasting money on me for, however, this year in Little Whinging there was going to be something akin to Winter Festivities that had the many desperate housewives of Privet Drive going into, well, overdrive.

My winter coat was not overly expensive, however, I had spotted it among other items and I had immediately taken a liking to it. It was of a thick, slightly prickly material that I recognized as wool. It would be itchy should I not wear anything underneath, however, as that was not the case, I would be more or less perfectly fine. This little coat was of a collection from two years ago from what I gathered from the little tag on it. It was of a small size which fit me perfectly fine because I was generally a rather small child to begin with. It was on half price and a lot cheaper than some of the other things Petunia was considering for my person. With my mind made up, I took the coat off the stand and skipped towards my aunt who was currently critically eyeing the dark blue jacket Dudley was trying on.

"Aunt Petunia, what about this one?" I asked, trying as best as I can to keep my hope out of my voice. We were in public so I doubted Petunia would snap as much at me as when we were at home, but it was still best not to test the patience of this woman.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, surprise coating her face as she immediately looked at the price tag.

I merely pointed towards where the outlet zone was. She moved her gaze towards that direction then back onto myself. I didn't like the look she was giving me. It was a suspicious, calculating look that made me swallow nervously and made me shrink upon myself and whatever hopes I seemed to have waning and shimmering out of existence followed by my confidence soon after.

"What are you standing there for girl! Put it on!" she finally said and I jumped into action, mimicking her look of surprise from earlier.

I took off my own rather thin Fall jacket and put on the red coat. It was of a classic design, clean design that I liked perfectly well. The collar, without the protective properties of a scarf or a turtleneck shirt, was prickling upon the delicate skin of my neck and I knew that I'd be red from scratching there within the hour. That aside, the sleeves were a bit too long, but I was certain Petunia'd fix it if I gave her the right incentive. The hem of the coat fell well below my knees and, overall, it was a snug fit. The stitching around the shoulder area left my hands capable of almost completely free movement. There were several inner pockets as well as an outer pocket over my left breast along with the two deep and large pockets that were on either sides of my coat.

Given my size and the way I seemed to be gaining height, I came to the conclusion this coat would last me at least two winters. Three if I managed the dexterity required to sew with these kiddie fingers.

"But I want that one!"

Oh boy. That was Dudley of course, my ever forceful and selfish cousin. He was insisting that he wanted the scarf, hat and gloves set that came along with another set but of a different color. Which happened to be more or less the same color as my coat, but of a darker red. Petunia, of course, indulged her boy wonder, after which she pursed her lips and gave me a disdainful look, which spoke volumes of how lucky and grateful I should be feeling. I count my lucky stars and decide to consider this the once in a lifetime early Christmas present from the Dursleys.

We left the mall with a few other new pieces of clothing (for Dudley) and, of course, with a lot new toys for him (and myself) to play with.

* * *

 _[Earlier that year]_

It was late evening during early spring.

"Vernon, the girl is unnatural." Petunia whispered intently to her husband, thinking I was asleep in my cupboard and unable to hear them all the way up on the second floor landing by the stairs. The house was dark and quiet and I could hear them perfectly fine, of course.

"But you said that freak of a child hasn't done anything... unnatural!"

"She was teaching Dudley how to do division today."

Oh, so she had seen through that? Doesn't matter. It isn't as if I was going to stop trying to help Dudley with his education all the while keeping him entertained. He certainly enjoyed throwing missiles at both Autobots and Decepticons after dividing them with enough gusto for the both of us.

Vernon remained quiet for quite a while.

"Where did she learn to do math, Vernon!? I barely keep her out of my sight!"

"It was that Figg woman, wasn't it? I knew we shouldn't have left the girl with her! She's filled the girl's head with nonsense!"

"What do we do Vernon? I'd make her stop playing with Dudders, but he'd throw a tantrum. You know how he is."

"What about that Polkiss kid? What was his name? He was about the same age as our boy. Piers! His name was Piers."

"We can arrange playdates, but the girl would still be there."

"Boys should play with boys. The girl's too unnatural and with a new friend, Dudley would be better off."

The Dursleys clearly never met my cousins then. I was the only girl in my generation back in my past life. Until I met MJ, I had been the most at ease playing with boys. Hell, I had more Transformers, Power Rangers, Dinosaurs and Voltron toys than I did Barbies! It was a ten to one ratio I think. Other girls played house while I was busy traversing the wild urban jungles of my quiet Parisian neighborhood. My knees were always scraped, and my arms were constantly covered in scratches and bruises. I wore overalls well until I was thirteen I think, since they were sturdy, and my mum had easier time replacing them than when I ruined my dresses and she'd lament them for days!

Who cared if Petunia and Vernon were trying to replace me with Piers? I'd just teach math to both of them and make it seem like a fun game of giant alien robots versus the other giant alien robots.

This conversation they had that I've been privy to spoke of one thing. They couldn't ignore me as actively any more. They couldn't get rid of me, so instead they had tried to remove themselves as much as possible. But now that I had become an ingrained part of Dudley's life, not his bully target at that, and they couldn't just simply continue to ignore me. People would notice, and if the People were even a quarter as observant as Petunia was, then they'd notice there was something that wasn't normal in this household. Petunia'd be mortified, the social workers from the child services would be called and then things would go downhill for both myself and Dudley. But at the same time this was a threat that I was hanging over their faces like a screwed up version of mistletoe and that gave me more freedom than what I've been able to enjoy in years. And that power was simply intoxicating!

I could never forget that I was literally doing a balancing act upon a very thin edge. Should "The People" notice anything, it wasn't just Petunia and Vernon on the line. It was our entire household. Essentially, I was the baby on fire in Petunia's arms. At one side, I was on fire and I was burning her. I was a baby, however, and she couldn't just throw or get rid of me. On the other side, however, I was _the_ baby on fire. Even if she got rid of me, I'd still suffer, no matter what. What a predicament I was in, huh? And this wasn't something that had suddenly happened. This had been our collective predicament since I had been left in their care. Since we are stuck together, we might as well work together. Now wouldn't that be the magic trick of the century?

Dudley and I have met Piers a few times during Petunia's tea parties with Mrs. Polkiss and a few other of the more notable desperate housewives of Privet Drive. It is quite the gathering of middle class ladies with their spawn. An interesting fact- there are far more boys than girls my age on Privet Drive compared to other neighborhoods in Little Whinging. Particularly in Petunia's war camp, er, group of close female friends, there are only two girls my age and both of them are currently visiting a friend on Magnolia street. As much as Petunia would've loved to leave me with them, she couldn't afford to have me free to my own devices. As such, I was stuck with her, learning how to properly serve tea. I jealously stole glances at Dudley and Piers.

Piers was a scrawny kid compared to Dudley. He was faster and more agile, but Dudley had a far greater fortitude and his strength had no match among the other boys as well. They've split in two teams and were attempting to play some version of soccer, I think. As much as six year old boys could understand soccer.

My attention was predominantly taken by Mrs. Polkiss who was doing her best to tutor me. I've some idea what Petunia has said about me but I highly doubt mentally slow and retarded figured in the epithets about my person. I've made it a point to be as reasonable and sensible as possible when concerning Petunia and her moods.

I stole a glance at Petunia, who seemed to be enjoying my aggravation and discomfort greatly. Oh well, if you can't beat them...might as well make a show of it. I disregarded every single thing Mrs. Polkiss had been teaching me for the past half an hour and delightfully dunked a biscuit into my tea cup, before swallowing it whole, crumbs falling all over Mrs. Polkiss' pristine table cloth. I gave my aunt a conspiratory side glance before my stirring my tiny cup of tea vigorously with five spoonfuls of sugar and then proceeding to suck on the teaspoon and plucking it out of my mouth with a loud pop before placing it with a loud clank and a bit of a splash back in my tea.

"This tea is wonderful Mrs. Polkiss! And the biscuits are exquisite!" I exclaimed jovially before slurping on my overly sweet tea concoction. I barely managed not to choke from the sugar overload. I downed half my drink before I left my teacup back on the table and then filled it back up with milk to further horrify the poor woman across Petunia.

Aside from the fact six year old children generally didn't know the meaning of the word exquisite, I think I did a fine performance. By the end of it, Petunia made sure to rectify my behavior, but what a show she made of it, too, and, then, finally, I was left to go play with the boys, who were now in the middle of deciding which superhero they'd be for their newest game. Just like Transformers, the Marvel and DC comic book superheroes had become quite the thing among the youngster population.

Petunia and Vernon did not approve of this superhero craze, but since most of this was considered science fiction with a healthy dose of fantasy (on top of being the most normal craze among boys) it wasn't hard to let Dudley play along with the other boys' games.

Naturally, due to being the tallest, strongest and blondest child of the bunch, Dudley got to be Thor. Captain America was out of the question. Vernon was a patriot through and through and thus so was his son. To be honest Dudley would've made a poor Captain America. He was much more suited to his role as Thor, who was brutish in some ways, an oaf in others, and generally spoke in a funny way that Dudley imitated with glorious hilarity abound.

My being in a dress greatly dampened any potential for me properly joining the rambunctious boys in their games but at least I got to watch them play without Petunia watching me over her shoulder. Still I managed to join their game in a way by being Iron Man's JARVIS, which was so funny that I was still grinning for hours even after we had gone home.

Well, Dudley was Thor, Piers was Captain America, the second largest boy, David, was the Hulk, and this other mousy brat, Paul, with dark hair and thick rectangular glasses was Tony Stark. There were three other boys who were against us. They were staunch DC supporters so, naturally, they were Batman, Superman and the Flash. The kid playing the flash was pretty fast. It was fun, kiddie nonsense, with me doing my best JARVIS voice, complete with irony-thick, sarcastic quips and of course, sir's. I still have no idea what we were fighting over, but it was awesome and it was so amazing that for a little while I forgot I wasn't actually a small child, but a grown woman. Well, whatever, growing up is optional! It was nice to be a small child for a change and to let go of my worries.

* * *

As a person who used to be a gamer, I must say I rarely found myself annoyed with British weather. Today was a bit of an exception, however, as it had been raining on and off since morning and we couldn't go out and play as I had wanted. Petunia had used the opportunity to get me to help her with shopping while Dudley was over at the Polkisses to hang out with Piers.

Petunia, contrary to what I believed for years, had a driving license. And she's a decent driver too! Which was a relief, seeing as I had been prone to motion sickness in my previous life and with Vernon's excellent driving skills that particular thing of the past had sort of laid forgotten for an indefinite amount of time until Petunia decided I was to be her personal portable bag space for this shopping trip.

It was mid-April, there was a bit of a cold front going on, the skies were gray, the streets were wet, and Vernon's car, a dark grape purple Vauxhall Chevette, was freshly washed and waxed, which, in my opinion, was an exercise of futility, considering it was going to rain at least three more times by the time the day was over. Nevertheless, Vernon took great pride in this vehicle's appearance.

The only reason Petunia was in the driver's seat right now, instead of Vernon driving us, was because Uncle Dearest was out with some friends from work, or something like that, and one of them was driving them to wherever Vernon went with them. I hardly gave Vernon's pass times much thought, which also seemed to be what Petunia did as well, unless it involved her and her perfect housewife skills in some way. And said skills were usually applied at dinner parties that Vernon used to schmooze clients and his company bosses alike.

Speaking of Vernon, he seemed to be gaining a lot of weight lately, which I attribute to both stress at work and said dinner parties, as well as Petunia's continued attempts to shove as much food as she can down Vernon and Dudley's throats. For a four member household, we sure shop enough for a family of eight. I really don't care about his weight but he is the sole bringer of money within this unit and as such his health is important so he could continue bringing food on the table for the foreseeable future.

I've no idea if Petunia has any education bar her high school one. I've never seen a Diploma or anything of the likes of hers around the house. Of course, Vernon's own university diploma is proudly presented over the fake fireplace. That fireplace used to be a real one until Dudley threw one of his toys in there. The plastic started melting and there was a horrible smell as well as smoke that filled the house and, for once, Petunia put her foot down and that was it. We still have a functional chimney, which howls on occasions when it gets particularly windy or stormy. Vernon invested in a better, insulated glass cover and the howling has been almost completely eradicated when the weather's more moody than usual.

The drive through Little Whinging isn't particularly long but it's still long enough to require to use a car. Furthermore, I doubt Petunia'd be seen lugging shopping bags on foot, even if her life depended on it. She was all about presentation and poise and damn if that woman did not have spades of both. She was not pretty, nor was she particularly charming, but as far as middle class housewives went, Petunia was Grade-A material in all the things that mattered (to the desperate housewives of Privet Drive).

Petunia parked the car and I got out as soon as she turned off the engine. It was a Saturday so , naturally, the supermarket's parking lot was more or less full. I even recognized a few of the cars as they were some of our neighbors'. Yep, that was Mr. Higgs' Ford Escort MK4, with the little dent at the back that he had said he'd have it fixed in no time. I promptly informed Petunia that it still wasn't. If she'd get a bit satisfaction at that gossipy bit, then I'm all for abusing that to schmooze my way into her good graces for the week.

"Mr. Higgs' car still has that dent, Aunt Petunia." I stated in as a matter of factly fashion as possible. "I thought he said he'd fix it straight away. I wonder why he's postponing it."

"None of that nonsense now, girl. We have shopping and dinner to do and little time for it. Get a cart and follow me."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." I said obediently. I did not miss how she looked over to the dent, nor did I miss that glint in her eye when a bit of juicy gossip information was presented to her. I'd say that was a score for me!

We entered the bustling supermarket with the marching force of trained soldiers. Anybody who was a somebody in the circle of Little Whinging's Housewives was more or less here, it seemed. There was Mrs. Hugo from Wysteria Walk with her daughters, Lora and Wilhelmina, eleven and thirteen years old respectfully. The girls were bickering while their mother was dutifully ignoring their nonsense. Then, by the detergents' isle, was Mrs. Higgs, Mr. Higgs' wife, who was more or less housewife enemies with Petunia, which would almost seem highly, ridiculously improbable, because they spoke so cordially with each other. Mr. Higgs was a good friend of Vernon's which, of course, meant that their wives were at each other's throats, constantly trying to outdo each other in dinner parties. Mrs. Higgs was eyeing a brand of cheap washing detergent, which Petunia had commented once that it wasn't good and not worth her time or Vernon's money.

"Mrs. Higgs, two o'clock." I said quietly to Petunia, who turned and saw what I saw. I didn't need to say anymore. Just from the these two little observations both Petunia and myself made so far, it was obvious that the Higgs' household was having money trouble. Or so it seemed. It didn't matter if it was true or not, speculation was half the job of a master gossip monger and Petunia was Tzar, Caesar and Commander of the craft.

To be honest, I never expected I'd learn so much in such a short amount of time just from a mere housewife that does pretty much nothing with her life but gossip and take care of her household. It was terrifying just thinking about what that kind of energy would do, had it been applied to a more productive endeavor. In my previous life I've also had the opportunity to observe people but never had I the chance to view them the way Petunia did and in such minute detail. The minutia was what was important. Anything and everything could be used to tell a believable enough story that, in a close-knit community such as the one of the Desperate Housewives of Little Whinging, it had the ability to both ruin and uplift one's social standing.

It was purely by Petunia's persistence, hard work and constant vigilance that the Dursleys enjoyed such a high standing within Little Whinging. She held her head high, she strutted her stuff like she was all that, she clicked her heels on the paved walkways and she had that spring in her step that spoke of prosperity, confidence and superiority in the way that only a well-off, happy housewife can pull it off. And there I was, the little misfit orphan niece, by her side, wearing a decent enough soft gray dress with red lace ribbons and my shiny lacquered red shoes, doing a perfect imitation of my aunt, being the very image of middle class high society.

The Dursleys do not spend money on me unless it brings them some sort of benefit. And right now, I was wearing the hell out of my brilliant looking red lacquered shoes, knowing full well Petunia would put them away somewhere again, so I would not ruin them in some unnatural way. Whether Petunia knew I was favoring this deep, shiny shade of red was irrelevant. Still, there was a certain fondness I felt for this color, one that seemed to have replaced my previous preference of yellows and golds. Perhaps it had to do with this new life of mine? Perhaps it was because this red color reminded me so much of Uchiha Madara's armor from the manga and anime Naruto. My hair was certainly Uchiha enough. I am just happy it has finally grown long enough to be easier to style in some way. The red ribbon that Petunia had placed on my head did nothing for my mangy, wild front bangs, but it looked decently cute at least. As cute as Petunia would ever allow me to be.

This new life has given me the opportunity to learn new things, both about the world and about myself. And right now, all that I've been learning here and all that I've known from my previous life has constantly been put to the test. In some ways I feel so weary and tired of all these little subtle games I played with the Dursleys that sometimes I found myself thinking about leaving and trying my luck elsewhere.

Another part of me, however, found itself liking this life, as hard as it was. Everything that I did meant something, no matter how small. It meant something to me and nobody else, but I found that this time around that was enough. I've found a new appreciation and love for myself that hadn't been there before and even if it had come from a school of very hard knocks, it was still something that I took pride in and that would help me later on in life, no matter what I was going to face.

* * *

Am I suffering of Stockholm Syndrome on top of crippling depression?

On second thought, did I really want to know?

* * *

The Transformers toys are officially the oldest toys ever in Dudley's possession that are still within the house. For some reason they've stopped breaking, no matter how many times Dudley throws them. Dudley's particularly fond of Optimus Prime now, as well as Bumblebee. He places them on his bedside table before going to bed. A part of me is happy that he is finding good role models. Mostly, however, I am sad that there is one less Con fan in the world. Then again both Autobots and Decepticons have had an important part in Dudley's mental development. Under my careful guidance, my special snowflake cousin can now count to one thousand and can add, subtract, multiply and divide with numbers all the way to 100 and is also, quite slowly, trying to understand the basic principles of being a consummate humanitarian, all thanks to dear old Optimus. Mind you, there is a world difference between being and trying to understand. Rome was not built in a day and neither will Dudley's moral compass.

Ah well.

Baby steps, patience and persistence. There was nothing more to it than that.

* * *

[back to winter 1986]

I've never felt like a more proper member of society than I do now, surrounded by shallow, gossipy people that do everything for the sake of posturing, even if it was one of the coldest winters Little Whinging has seen in decades. Then there were the children, all happy, yelling, screaming and cheering at all of the snow around them and all of the presents they'd be getting within the next few days. The holiday cheer was in full swing in Little Whinging, the central square was packed full of people and I was holding Aunt Petunia's left hand, while Dudley was holding her right one and positioned between herself and Uncle Vernon's.

That day, right before going out, I had stared at myself in the full body mirror in the hallway by the entrance. I had gained a few inches, my skin was pale, but with puffy, rosy cheeks. I was still a lithe wisp of a thing, with knobby knees well hidden underneath warm clothes and my beautiful new winter coat. Aunt Petunia had combed my hair and braided it, then tying the end with a red ribbon. Perhaps she really did know my preference for red colors. My winter boots were also of a red color and for once I was not wearing a skirt or a dress underneath, but a pair of pants of a soft, black material that was thick and kept me warm. My eyes were still these big, green orbs and my eyebrows were their usual tiny unruly black caterpillars.

I seemed happy. I looked happy.

Was I happy though?

I don't know. I can't even remember what being truly happy felt like anymore. At least I don't think so. There was always something happening that kept me on edge, always something ruining an otherwise decently content moment.

And even if I was happy, I had no one to share it with. I missed MJ. I missed Harry. I missed my home and everything that went with it. I missed my old life, as shitty as it ended up being. As Aunt Petunia dragged me out by my arm, I took in a deep breath from the cold winter air and I shoved aside all these thoughts of days passed. There were people on the streets and instead of taking Vernon's car, we opted to walk to our destination like everybody else. It was safer this way, Vernon had said, as the snow had left the streets a safety hazard for anyone who would be driving.

When we'd arrived at the town square some half an hour later, we immediately found ourselves by the Polkisses and the Higgses, as well as their children, Piers Polkiss and Paul Higgs. By instinct both Dudley and myself freed ourselves of Petunia's grip and huddled closer to Piers and Paul, with whom Dudley started chatting excitedly about this and that, while I listened quietly from the side. It was usually like this when we met up. Dudley would take on the active role of a leader of our little group, I'd stay quietly by his side and give suggestions occasionally and we'd more or less spend our play dates playing games like most children our age did with me supervising and low-key babysitting while the adults did their adult things.

The winter festivities were amazing, especially from my perspective. It was honestly a nice experience. The Dursleys barely noticed I was actually there with them and I was just another child among a sea of happy, cheery children. I joined in singing Christmas songs at one point, not really caring if the Dursleys noticed or not ( I think they didn't) and I submerged myself in this cheerful atmosphere like a thirsty man in an oasis water spring. It was the first Christmas I celebrated since my rebirth. At least the first that I could remember. It was the first time that I was more Harrietta the child than Fiona the woman.

I was happy.

Dudley called me away from the choir of people singing Christmas songs and I joined him into a fun game of snowball fighting. Of course, apply Dudley's prodigious throwing skills, Piers' dodging capabilities and my strategic prowess and we, along with Paul Higgs, laid waste to our opposition. Our game lasted well into the evening at which point Aunt Petunia called us back and we prepared for the End of Winter Festivities closing ceremony, or whatever that was. It was a bit like a concert but with less people. It was also a bit like a fair but with more people bringing stuff and sharing and less stalls where you bought food of questionable health inspection status.

By the time we got back home both Dudley and myself were wet and cold, but also grinning happily and Dudley had spent our entire way back retelling (for the Nth time) our awesome snowball massacre. I was following quietly by Petunia's side and I watched as Vernon puffed up like a mustached lion seal, all proud of Dudley's accomplishments today. I bet he'd get Dudley an additional Christmas present just for that.

On Boxing Day Dudley approached me and gave me a small framed picture.

"Mom didn't want it, so I thought to give it to you." he said and I blinked owlishly at what just happened.

I took the photo from his hands and looked at it. I felt my eyes prickling with tears. It was us. It was Dudley, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, and there was me as well. We were all together in this picture, all looking happy, with smiles on our faces and our cheeks rosy with both cheer and cold. Dudley had an arm around me and I remember the moment the picture was taken. Dudley had been telling Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon about one of his snowball throws and he was shaking me with one arm around me, which on this picture looked more of an affectionate familial gesture than the need to expend energy in a some form of boyish rambunctiousness.

It didn't matter though. We looked like family for once.

I was happy.

I wiped my tears away and smiled at Dudley before I scared him away with my show of girly emotions.

"Thanks Dudley!" I said and I hugged him tightly.

I was happy.

Dudley did care! I was so proud of him. In that moment I didn't care what Petunia or Vernon would think. All that mattered was that Dudley cared. He cared about me and...and I finally felt like there was someone there for me. I was no longer alone. I had Dudley, and, if Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon got over themselves, he could have me as well.

We were family.


	6. Life finds a way pt1

**_A/N: This chapter has not been updated by my Beta yet, but I was impatient and wanted to put it up anyways. Enjoy this monster! It's half of what I had planned for this chapter but I still got stuff to finish up in pt2 of it._**

 _[1987, a month or so before school]_

I've been snatching newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets lately and one glaring problem was starting to become quite obvious. In my previous life, I used to have a near perfect vision that I tried to take care of to the best of my ability given how much time I spent sitting in front of a computer or reading tiny texts on subjects such as physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology and the like. At one point I even got myself a pair of reading glasses that I used on a rare occasion when my vision would get too blurry for the tiny script of the coursebooks I had available. Some would call it a bit obsessive, but in the last few years in my life in my more lucid moments, I had found myself striving to make something of myself, just to prove the world that I still had fight in me.

Obviously, that kind of dream did not have enough hold on me if I was here now, but that wasn't my issue at the moment. My issue was that I was having trouble reading texts that I used to be able to breeze through with ease. In short, my eyesight was shit. And given my tender age of six and a half years old, there was very little that I could do bar talking with Aunt Petunia immediately, and hoping she'd find the time in her _cough_ busy _cough_ schedule. I was really short-sighted at the moment and that horrified me. I had to squint really hard to even see some of the text that I was looking at, which was just... ugh!

Well, Aunt Petunia will be hating me a bit more than usual for the foreseeable month and a half before school. She's already griping to my uncle about how much money we are going to cost them. Over the past few months, I've been having a bit of a problem growing inside my mind everytime I was mentioned in one way or another. I've never really thought about it, but apparently, I should have. I am talking about how I ended up with the Dursleys in the first place. It's a right mess and, even though I've very little to non-existent understanding of the laws of Great Britain, it was still so very strange to me, especially some of the things I found out from Aunt Petunia's rants to Vernon.

First of all, adults have the annoying habit of running their mouths without a care, especially around children. That's one of the things that would make me beat myself over the head until I got a concussion or a brain hemorrhage. Children, as many adults should all very well know, are like sponges to all kinds of information. And, what was worse, children had the annoying habit to repeat anything and everything they heard without a care in the world if said thing was sensitive or offensive in nature. Petunia was supposed to be aware of this fact. That woman was more suspicious and attentive than a ninja on a ship full of pirates and STILL, she runs her mouth in my hearing range! I am honestly simultaneously outraged and disappointed and I cannot decide which of the two I was more.

But that is, of course, just the cherry on top, the tip of the iceberg of the idiocy induced headache I was to get in the next few days from Petunia's constant spiteful little comments.

WHY ARE ADULTS SUCH A SORRY BUNCH OF IDIOTS, DAMN IT!?

Ugh! I am this close to giving both Vernon and Petunia a piece of my admittedly adult mind if only for the sake of setting things straight. This kind of bullshit should happen only in Indian soap operas!

Fact number one. Petunia found me crying on her doorstep on a chilly winter morning, November 2nd, 1981. I've been left there presumably sometime during the night. Of course, Petunia immediately called the police at which point hers and Vernon's headache was just starting while my own mind was failing to believe the little scene my ears were picking up and my brain turning into a dreadfully tragi-comedic piece of Broadway production of some sort.

I've had no birth certificate, no information on where I lived previously, who my parents were; if I had any (if any at all) vaccines, nothing. I was not just a persona non grata to the Dursleys but a freaking non-entity as far as the government was concerned. Finally, I was starting to believe Petunia's occasional comments about my parents dying due to drunken driving if only because such was the drastic irresponsibility to have not a single piece of paper proving my existence to the government.

Again, I must mention, this was the just tip of the iceberg. It gets better. Or worse, depending on the point of view.

So, there I was, a tiny orphan nobody toddler in Petunia's arms who was sitting at the closest police station with Vernon by her side, who, in turn, was holding a crying Dudley. The Dursleys have no idea what to do with me. Dudley probably had no idea what was going on, considering he was just a month or two older than me. The police were baffled and I've been that little curiosity that happened that one day in November 1981. Social workers were involved, a team of medics, a stay in the hospital in order to run tests and determine if I had any vaccines (apparently I had none, to my absolute horror) and then the arduous task of proving my familial connection to Petunia, seeing as, apparently, I was the child of her dead sister.

Petunia baffles me with her behavior sometimes. At times she is calm, poised and collected, but when things really heat up, the delicate image she creates for herself slips and underneath is a scared, harried woman who hated my mother, her sister, with a passion. Such was the state of the scorned, underlooked older sister who got left behind. Such was the state of one Petunia Dursley nee Evans. And such was the situation that I found out the name of my mother. Lily. My mother's name was Lily and apparently, I looked like my father, but I had her eyes.

"That wretched girl got herself killed by those...unnatural, freaky folk! Her and that no-good husband of hers!"

Perhaps whatever my mother did with my father was the reason for such hatred? I was suspecting either long-standing drug abuse, problems with the mafia (I remember reading about actual British Mafia once, about a pair of brothers or something like that, I think), being part of a weird religious cult or dark magic practicing sects or something of the like.

Honestly, I think I was better off without knowing about all of this. I felt guilty on behalf of my shitty, irresponsible parents, for one, and, on top of that, I was pissed off at the headaches I kept causing without even being aware that there was anything going on.

Mayhap now I understand my Aunt and Uncle a little bit better about their reluctance to associate with me more than necessary. It's more than a little jarring though. In my previous life, my parents, no matter how emotionally neglectful, were still considered decent, respectable folk. Apparently here and now that was not the case. The image of my family that I was building in my head was getting progressively darker and more twisted with each bit of new information that I got my hands on. Honestly, I am sick of the garbage of the past. Wasn't 24 extra years not enough that I had to endure the shame and disappointment from yet another source?

I am sick and tired of idiotic problems, of people being idiots and of all of this idiotic bullshit stacking itself on top of my head for no better reason than just because it could. I am tired of problems, I am tired of having to deal with bullshit and I am tired of being tired. Enough is enough.

Whatever the truth was, whether good or bad, it did not matter to me anymore. I am cutting any and all emotional ties with these would-have-beens and vaudevilles growing inside my head at every mention of my dead parents. I spent one-lifetime fighting windmills and I will certainly not make a repeat performance in this lifetime!

Sorry, mum and dad that I don't even know. Sorry, world. Sorry, Aunt and Uncle Dearest, but this bitch needs some time out from all of your bullshit.

I'm done.

No, seriously, I am done!

* * *

My talk with Petunia about getting me glasses went better than expected. Petunia's talk with Vernon about getting me glasses did not.

"Vernon, the school's going to complain if the girl is as blind as a bat and you know that people will start talking then!" Petunia had then said to Vernon in that intense hushed whisper voice that everyone in a room could typically hear. Of course, by people, Petunia meant the enemy. The enemy was "the People". And the People was anyone and everyone capable of smearing the pristine and coveted Dursley name within the eyes of the Little Whinging Community. And that was serious business as far as Petunia was concerned and therefore not a topic Vernon could swat away with his manly man authority.

So, lo and behold! I had my glasses' situation was a bit more dreadful than imagined when it came to my eyesight but I could at least look forward to laser surgery at some point in the future, as well as contact lenses. So... that's that with my hopeful Uchiha look-alikeness that apparently bit me in the ass. Half-blind and doomed to be a bespectacled four-eyed bug girl and no Sharingan to compensate! Jokes aside and the return of my now blooming body dysmorphic disorder, I was dreading going to school with thick glasses on top of my bushy caterpillar eyebrows, the scar on my forehead and the general rat's nest appeal of my mangy black hair. I was also tiny, frail-looking and, according to Dudley, perpetually grumpy when not playing games with him and Piers.

Things could obviously be worse but I guess even Piers' mousy face with a big nose could not lift my spirits enough to shake off this particular bout of depression looming over my thoughts. There is literally nothing that I like about myself. I feel like a shit stuck inside a turd, to be honest.

And yes, my bad mood is reflected perfectly in my rapidly degrading vocabulary. I am certain I can fill my sentences with as many expletives as possible and from as many different languages as well!

Uuuf... I digress.

At least Dudley is properly excited for his first day at school. I've been preparing him well enough. Petunia doesn't say anything about how I've taught him the letters of the alphabet or how to write a few words already. I've succeeded where she had failed to grab Dudley's attention, so I think that's the only reason she's keeping quiet about this. I am not off her hook about this however and I don't plan to delude myself into thinking this will go away with time. Petunia's already proven herself to being capable of holding grudges for obsessively long periods of time, especially holding true even beyond the grave in the case of my mother. I've merely inherited that hatred and contempt. I greatly doubt she sees me as anything more than HER spawn, rather than a child that happens to be the daughter of her late sister.

* * *

 _[Earlier that year]_

It's late spring but the weather in Britain has always proven itself to be mild. Both winter and summer are considerably milder in comparison to what I was used to back in my past life, something that I both liked and disliked, depending on whatever was going on around the household. Every year that passes I keep finding myself instinctively expecting and disappointing myself with the lack of the rapid, extreme temperature changes that I was so used to.

Despite the decency of the weather to not be as extreme as I am used to, it still seems that Vernon, coming home more flushed or stressed than usual. Petunia kept contributing this to his increased workload ever since his promotion, but even I, who wasn't by any standards a medical expert, could tell that Vernon's health was deteriorating at the speed of the kilograms he seemed to be putting on every month or so. Thus, one morning Petunia gingerly drove Dudley and myself to spend the day with the Higgses and with Piers, which, if it weren't for her so obviously false smile and the underlying terrible tautness of her nerves, the shimmering fear in her eyes and the oh so slight tremor of her thin hands, I would've welcomed with open arms.

Dudley, of course, noticed none of this, as he was generally prone to ignore anything or anyone who wasn't of some interest to him (a bad habit for sure, one that I was still trying to break him from). When Aunt Petunia left us with Mrs. Higgs, Piers was already there and he dragged Dudley straight away to sit with Paul on the sofa in order to watch Star Wars on their especially bulky TV. I was to join them as well, but first I wanted to say a few words to Petunia. I was worried that she might crash the car in her worried state and I lingered a respectable distance from her as she spoke with Mrs. Higgs, who also seemed concerned.

"Aunt Petunia?" I started carefully. She turned towards me with a stern look on her face and pursed her lips in place of the usual cold remark I'd get for taking up her precious attention." I hope Uncle Vernon will be okay." I said quietly, honestly. I wanted to comfort her by grabbing her hand and squeezing lightly, but I refrained from doing so. Despite living together, we were far from close. Still, I was part of the household and I'd do my part in it, whenever it was possible. "I will make sure Dudley's distracted, so don't worry about him for now, Ok? And Mrs. Higgs will take care of us. I promise not to cause trouble, Aunt Petunia."

I trailed off quietly at the end, seeing as she kept staring at me with those judgmental eyes and those pursed, thinned lips. I looked down at my hands that I was worrying one onto the other, which was showcasing my nervousness. It was never easy for me to communicate with my Aunt and Uncle, and I doubt I'd be more comfortable in the following years. Still, despite everything, we were family and I had promised myself to try and do my best to prove worthy of them. They were not the best people, but they were my people. They were my family now and that was all that mattered. Vernon was not okay and no matter how quiet Petunia had been, my disposition towards a very light sleep still had won out and I had heard her quiet commotion early in the morning as she rushed up and down the stairs, as well as her quiet talk on the phone with Mrs. Higgs.

At least Petunia was sensible enough not to worry the children about such things. Sickness, arguments and all those adults stuff were to be well away from any growing little person until life took its natural course to include them in this. I was not a child in mind, and as such, I had long ago condemned myself to be the watchful guardian of all these young ones that I had now surrounded myself with. Petunia, for all her flaws, was and always will be, a shrewd, sensible woman. She cleaned and she cooked for us, she fed and clothed us and she made sure both Dudley and I were respectable looking enough no matter the occasion. She may despise me, but that hamper her efforts to be the premium Little Whining Housewife. Perhaps, had I been a boy, things would've been different. Standards for boys and girls were different and I tried my best to fit whatever girly standards Petunia tried to set for me. I have yet to disappoint her and I found myself understanding that today was going to be one of those crucial days where my actions would either make or break whatever respect she may have for me. I wanted Petunia to think of me as reliable. If that were to happen then I'd enjoy greater freedom and from there I'd have more opportunities to build up an image that would help me breeze through my education later on in life.

But all of that was something to think about later. I adjusted my large, round glasses to sit a little higher on my tiny child nose bridge and I nervously tucked a lock of stray black hair behind an ear as I chanced a look at Petunia.

"You do that, girl," she said, her previously stern eyes holding a glimmer of wetness to them that hadn't been there previously. She turned to Mrs. Higgs once more. "I will call if anything happens."

"Of course, Petunia, dear." Mrs. Higgs smiled at her and Petunia entered the car once more and went off to drive Vernon to the hospital. Mrs. Higgs turned towards me and now it was her turn to give me a look. "It seems Pet's hard work with you is finally paying off. Ah well, it's nature versus nurture, and let it be known there is nothing Petunia cannot nurture. If you keep listening to your aunt and continue being a good girl, you might find a decent husband out there and do both yourself and your aunt a world of good."

Mrs. Higgs patted the top of my head, which caused my slightly too large glasses to sink a bit on my nose bridge again, and I pushed them up. I felt uncomfortable with Mrs. Higgs' attention but at the same time, I enjoyed her praise. It wasn't often that I got praise and I knew that whatever had happened just minutes earlier was the cause of it.

"Come on, Harrietta, dear. The boys will be watching those silly movies my husband obsesses so much over. I doubt a girl like you would find those interesting. Would you join me for some tea? Goodness knows you need to spend more time with girls than with boys."

I don't get to watch the original Star Wars trilogy with Dudley? Fuck that.

"But Mrs. Higgs! I heard there was a princess in the movies! I want to see the princess!" I gave her my best wide-eyed, innocent look that I could muster without looking too overly ridiculous (especially because of my eyebrows and already too large eyes). Mrs. Higgs teetered quietly at the look I was giving her and I imagine by bug-like glasses had something to do with it. Given that Mrs. Higgs was subtly trying to give me better role models that the boys in the other room, it wasn't too far a stretch of the imagination that I used Princess Leia as my role model to manipulate her with. I could also go down the sure fire way of being a petulant child and whine like the little girl I am supposed to be, but I have never whined before, first, and, second, I do not intend to start now. Whining is for people who don't have the faculties to get what they want, either in a straight enough manner or by applying elegant, socially acceptable subterfuge, the latter being my usual weapon of choice. Also, I am a proud creature, even in spite of my situation, and being a creature of pride, it was obvious that I rarely settled for what people wanted me to do versus what I wanted people to do for me.

By the time the third movie rolled about, it was almost time for dinner. True, we had started in the morning, but all three movies were more or less two hours each and Mrs. Higgs insisted on taking breaks between the movies so we could play outside or eat. Lunch had been a fun affair in which Dudley absolutely went gaga about Lightsabers, Luke and Han Solo. The whole Force hype was getting to him and he was barely done with his lunch before we started pretending to be Jedi fighting Storm Troopers. Dudley was Luke, of course, Paul Higgs was Han Solo (he took dibs of the role before Piers, Dudley's usual right-hand man, managed to take it), so that left me as Princess Leia and Piers as Darth Vader. Piers made for a particularly awkward Darth Vader and my Princess Leia was more or less true to character. Even so, however, I would've loved to play Darth Vader, if only because that was the best character along with the infamous roguish smuggler himself, Han Solo.

The big reveal about Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's father was a huge, dramatic shock for poor Dudley, which made him adore the whole Force thing even more because it was obvious how Darth Vader, who is an awesome villain, could produce such an awesome protagonist, namely Luke Skywalker himself. I think the boys greatly enjoyed the movies and my respect for Paul Higgs rose a little with the fact that he didn't spoil anything at all. I also got to learn a bit more about the Higgses as a whole. Paul's dad was quite the nerd and if the study was anything to go by, I'd probably spent my entire free time reading (rereading) the books here. That was, of course, should Petunia allow me. In the Dursley household, the greatest amount of books that one could find was cookbooks, which were in the kitchen, closely followed by a small set of a few volumes on housekeeping and finally, Vernon's manly man stack of mechanical and drill related magazines and a few odds and ends here and there that were mostly non-fiction that could barely get me interested enough to look at their titles. Vernon's magazines aren't half bad, by the way.

It was around after dinner that Dudley noticed he hadn't been around his parents the whole day, something that had never happened before in his (admittedly) short life. However, I did not look worried and Dudley had long since learned to take cues from me for certain things, thus he wasn't worried either.

Aunt Petunia showed up with the car to pick us up and we went home with Dudley telling Aunt Petunia about Star Wars with all of its glorious details. I remained silent during the short car ride. Judging by how her shoulders were set, I could guess Vernon wasn't doing as well as he should have been. Petunia looked tired and slightly haggard and her eyes were slightly red. Perhaps she had been crying before picking us up. Normally Petunia would've carefully chastised Dudley about watching such ridiculous things as the Star Wars movies, but right now her heart was elsewhere, perhaps with Vernon in whichever hospital he was in.

I hoped Uncle Vernon would be ok. He was the rock on which our household was standing on, and as gruff and uncaring of me that he could be, he was still my uncle and I knew that Petunia cared a very great deal about him. Dudley also did not deserve to suffer from watching his father in such a state. I haven't seen Vernon nor did I know what exactly was ailing him, but I knew that it was serious enough if Petunia was in such a state as she was now – a state in which she did not care about my general everyday unnaturalness nor the fact that I may or may not have done something freakish in her absence.

Mrs. Higgs made sure to tell her that our behavior had been exemplary and that I had helped her set the table and then clear it up as well ("Such a lovely girl you are raising, Petunia! Keep up this undoubtedly hard work!")

We entered our house and it was eerily quiet something, I noted, had never happened before. There was a certain, very fine air of staleness about us, and I could spot a few places where Petunia had neglected to clean up – there were still dishes to be put away after washing and the morning paper was tossed haphazardly on the coffee table in the living room. I surmised the beds were not made, so I quickly left Petunia with Dudley downstairs and headed for the second floor to at least set Dudley's bed straight. That, I think, he would've noticed to be out of order and then he'd ask questions of his mother than break the careful content mask she had put on for the sake of her baby boy.

I did not enter Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's room. I was not allowed in there and I knew Dudley did not have any interest to investigate it. Instead, I headed quickly back down, making as least noise as I possibly could.

"Mom, where is dad?" Dudley asked as he looked around, figuring something was not quite right but not really grasping any more of the situation.

"Daddy will be a bit late coming home from work, Popkin. Why don't you sit by the telly while I make you some dessert? I know for certain Mrs. Higgs would've neglected your growing boy appetite." she smiled sweetly at Dudley while stealing a glance in my direction at which I nodded in confirmation of her suspicions. "Girl, help me in the kitchen."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," I said and quickly moved past her as I put away all the dishes and cutlery. This particular chore was one given to me a scant three months ago, but it was a chore that I had taken up with gusto, knowing full well the importance of pulling my weight in this household. I was adequate enough that Petunia silently nodded towards the fridge from where I pulled out Milk, chocolate, and some eggs for the desert my aunt was going to make. I carefully removed each ingredient one by one, well aware of the capacity of my small, feeble arms, and I set about to pull the sugar and some of the utensils she'd need for this. I used the small stepping chair that was in the kitchen for this purpose. I laid out everything on the counter as neatly as possible and then I put away my stepping chair in its little corner of the kitchen. Aunt Petunia watched me with a critical eye and then sent me away to watch the telly with Dudley. I tried not to react too happily at this. Usually, she'd keep me by her side, but right now I knew she needed me at Dudley's to keep him distracted.

"There aren't any good cartoons on the telly," Dudley whined, at which point I took the remote from him (one of the most blessed inventions of the 80ies, thank God!) and switched through the channels, trying to find anything worth watching. I stopped on the Evening News and then tugged Dudley to get some toys to play with while Petunia was busying herself in the kitchen.

We did not see Vernon for three days straight and I've done all I could to keep Petunia's little charade going.

"Mom, where's dad?" he'd ask in the morning.

"Your father went to work early, Dudders, you just missed him." she'd answer and sometimes I'd add a nod or a sentence of my own to confirm her words. On day three, just after Dudley went out to play with Piers, I stayed behind to speak with Aunt Petunia. I needed to know just how bad things were.

"Aunt Petunia, how's Uncle Vernon?" I asked her, carefully choosing the moment in hopes she wouldn't break anything in her delicate state of despair combined with taut nerves. "He is going to be ok, right?"

Petunia stopped what she was doing, which was wiping the perfectly clean table of imaginary dirt and turned abruptly to look at me. I wasn't being unreasonable by her standards and I needed to know if I had to prepare for the worst. Unlike Petunia, who was in her late twenties, early thirties (I think she was born around 1957, I'm not sure), Uncle Vernon was close to ten years or so older than her (I think he was born in 1950 or so, never really bothered with knowing the exact dates, given how I made myself scarce during their tender birthday celebrations). Vernon, being older, of the male gender, of considerably greater health than what was recommended for him, easily put him into the risk groups of many diseases and conditions that may or may not have some weight with his current situation. If I was to play a part in keeping Dudley out of the loop on this, I'd need to know what the situation was. I'd hardly have him unprepared if, Heaven forbid, Vernon kicked the bucket right then and there, in a hospital God knows where.

Aunt Petunia kept looking at me, but this time I remained calm, hands completely relaxed at my sides and my eyes never leaving hers. Perhaps that would be considered daft of me, a scrawny, unwanted almost-seven-year-old, but this was important. It was important for me and it was important for Dudley. I needed to know how to proceed and what to do with Dudley.

"The doctors said he'd make a full recovery." Petunia finally said, after a long while in which we had a staring match.

"That's good," I replied after a short silent pause of my own. "Dudley'd be crushed if something happened to him and you also love him very much, don't you, Aunt Petunia? I don't like seeing you like this, Auntie."

That last bit I added quietly, carefully. I was almost afraid to voice this, but I needed her to know that I considered myself part of this family, even if neither she nor Vernon considered me such.

"You're a smart girl." Petunia suddenly spoke and my eyes once more darted to her face, attentive and wide. " Too smart, even. Just like your mother. Not all of you is him." She was referring to my father, I think. "Lily was better than that sorry lot. You ought to be better if you know what is good for you."

"I try my best, Auntie."

"That you do and it is your one saving grace, girl."

We did not speak much afterward. I spent my afternoon with Aunt Petunia, whose attention was more or less glued to the clock, as she was probably counting the seconds to the visiting hours in whichever hospital Vernon was. I insisted she drink some chamomile tea before visiting Uncle, which she did and she left me with Mrs. Polkiss, who was currently catering to Dudley, as well as her son Piers. Dudley was still very much in a Jedi phase, much to my amusement. Oh, if he only knew the glory of the extended universe. While Darth Vader was my favorite character in the franchise, it was Revan, whose philosophies I favored the most within the universe of Star Wars. I was a Knights of the Old Republic fan.

" _Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You are all things, Revan… and yet you are nothing. In the end, you belong to neither the light nor the darkness. You will forever stand alone._ " Those were Darth Malak's words concerning Revan.

I wondered what Dudley would think of Revan. Right now Dudley's world was Black and White and Might Makes Right. I did my best to instill a more open-minded view of the world but, to be perfectly honest, Optimus Prime was doing a lot better than I was, and Optimus was a fictional character, which was more or less a serious blow to my already quite fragile self-esteem. My only consolation was that there was at least some progress in that aspect.

Uncle Vernon came back home after being missing for ten or so days. Petunia had told Dudley that his father had to go away for a few days for some work-related conference or some such. I don't think Dudley really understands what that means except that his father won't be home for a while. When Vernon came back home he seemed quite tired and my eyes swept across his body for any signs of whatever illness he may have gone through. It couldn't have been an invasive procedure because he wouldn't have been able to come home on his own in such a short period of time. I think the issue was heart or blood vessels related. Dudley happily welcomed his father home and then I distracted my cousin with some of the gifts Vernon brought home for Dudley while Petunia slowly helped my uncle up the stairs so he could rest in his room.

On the next day, Petunia and Vernon announced the, ahem, happy news that Dudley and I were going to go visit Aunt Marge for a while. While Dudley was thrilled beyond the moon with that news, as Marge tended to spoil him rotten, I was most assuredly not. Marge was a vile woman, through and through, and the Dursleys have done their best to present me in the worst possible light for years, current improvements on that front on the local scale be damned.

Due to Vernon's condition, he could not drive us all the way to the countryside where Marge lived, so she actually had to come to get us and we were to travel by train all the way back to her home. In short, it was going to be a nightmare for me. I don't think Dudley likes her much, if at all, but he knows better if he wants to keep her ridiculously expensive gifts coming.

The day Marge Dursley came to our household was a wet, rainy one, and Petunia drove her all the way from the train station, which Dudley found a bit odd but otherwise paid it no heed. The house was in an impeccable condition. Despite the rainy weather, the window glass panes were literally glowing from just how clean they were, the curtains were fresh from the laundry and perfectly ironed, all of Petunia's best silverware had been washed and polished by yours truly, our best plates were on display, the fridge was full to the brim in order for Petunia to cook Marge's favorite meals. Hell, even my cupboard was in a state of godly cleanliness that had never been before.

Both Dudley and myself were dressed to impress, and Petunia had gone as far as to use some of her own expensive conditioner on my hair in order to smooth it somewhat. My hair was carefully styled with many pins into a braided bun that somehow managed to hold onto its smoothed state. My dress was a brand new one that Petunia had shown up with the day prior. I dared not say anything at the sight of my aunt's utterly displeased face and the thin line that was her mouth. I knew this displeasure was not caused by myself but by the imminence of Aunt Marge's presence. She undermined whatever housewife authority Petunia held and my words failed at the way she curb-stomped Uncle Vernon's manly man authority. I was certain today she'd be worse than usual, given Vernon's delicate state.

This whole situation was entirely unpleasant for the entire household but if it was for the sake of Vernon's improved health and Dudley's continued happiness, I was ready to put up with it to the best of my ability. Vernon was going to rehabilitation at some expensive sanatorium on the continent and Petunia was going with him (the woman needed all the help she could get for the stress she had been through in the last few days). I was all for them to have their vacation, but at the cost of spending Dudley and mine's with Marge? I will try to survive to the best of my ability. Try being the operating word.

The front door opened and Aunt Marge slowly, heavily, waddled in, cradling an English Bulldog in one hand and her shiny, fashionable purse in the other.

"Humph...the house...tch" Marge clicked and mumbled quietly but her rumbling voice was heard clearly by all of us. Her eyes were sweeping over everything around her, clearly disapproving of whatever was offending her. At this point, I think it was her own delusions of grandeur. The house couldn't possibly get any cleaner unless we dipped everything in bleach and industrial strength cleaning detergents. Which would ruin all fabrics and everything else, really. Petunia's carefully schooled face twitched at the very insinuation Marge was trying to make about Petunia's cleaning skills.

"Vernon! Look at you! I knew Petunia doesn't take good enough care of you. At least the doctors got to you in time."

"Sister!" Vernon gave her a warning look that went completely over Marge's head.

"Doctors?" Dudley asked quietly but urgently, eyes shifting quickly between his mom, dad and Aunt Marge.

"I knew that wife of yours would bring you to an early grave. I told you she doesn't feed you right! And the boy too. It's that vermin of yours that sucking your money dry isn't it? That's why you are so overworked that it nearly killed you!"

"Dad! What is Aunt Marge talking about? You aren't going to die, are you?"

"Marge, please! Dudders didn't know. I asked you not to bring this up in front of the children!" Petunia pleaded as she stood in her spot, torn between going to her husband or going to her son.

"And why shouldn't I when that leech is right over there, draining your money away! Oh, why didn't you get rid of it, Vernon! Place that good for nothing free-loader where it belongs, in an orphanage!"

She was not looking straight at me, waving her purse in one hand. The dog was watching me and it was growling as if supporting everything his owner was saying.

"I knew Petunia would spoil you. Look at you! Weak! And the boy too! He's gotten so scrawny. Isn't your wife feeding you well enough?"

"Aunt Marge, you are upsetting Uncle Vernon!" I said finally, my voice quiet, but firm and I knew she had heard me. I couldn't just stand by and watch her ruin whatever improvement Vernon had gained because she was being too thick-headed to understand basic societal concepts!

"Shut your mouth, girl, or I will shut it for you! Absolutely no respect! Why I don't know what you've been doing with this child but there is clearly not enough beatings to make her learn to hold her tongue! Is it because she's a girl, Vernon? Father did not distinguish between boys and girls! We both got our just desserts as deserved!"

By now Vernon was almost purple in the face, Aunt Petunia was desperately trying to calm down a crying Dudley, and that wretched dog of hers was now barking and almost frothing in the mouth with a mad, feral glint in its bulging eyes. English Pitbulls were not large dogs, but their bite was big enough to take a big chunk out of my torso if it so desired. I hated that dog.

"Go prepare the dining table." Petunia turned to me and I nodded and swiftly left for the kitchen.

The plates and bowls were all mostly prepared. I gave the pots with hot food a quick glance and opened the fridge to take a look at the drinks we had available. The Wine was already placed in a cooler with ice before Petunia had left to pick up Marge. Good. Everything was in place.

I just knew it this was going to be a terrible experience for all of us. I just wanted to put this out there.

Vernon led Marge towards the dining table and let her sit by his side (she took Petunia's usual seat, which did not go unnoticed by her.) Dudley was sat on his other side by Petunia while she herself had me sit next to Dudley and she herself sat down next to Marge. That gesture did not go unnoticed by me. Petunia directly positioned herself in Marge's way so that I wouldn't take the brunt of her aggressions. The dog was still clutched by her side as Petunia stood up to get the wine for Marge. To be honest I found it absolutely disgusting to have that canine slobbering over the freshly washed tablecloth and the pristinely clean plates that Petunia and I slaved away to get in such a state. And I am open-minded and quite tolerating of animals in the house. Hell, I bought a huge friggin dog, an Alaskan Malamute bitch by the name of Ceasar that my parents forced back into my care when said darling grew big enough for my three-year-old brother to ride on. Apparently, the dog was too dangerous for their sensible sensibilities.

I felt a sharp pang of grief and longing at the thought of Ceasar. I wonder what she was doing now. Was MJ taking good care of her? Was MJ taking good care of herself? It's been more or less 7 years since my death. I wondered if time trickled by in the same speed as it did in this universe. Were we even in the same universe? Was this the past of my future past life? It was still too early for me to go and look into that.

The English Bulldog growled menacingly at my Aunt and she squeaked and pulled away with the wine bottle, quite frightened at that display.

"What a meek wife you have there, Vernon. Ripper's a perfectly decent and harmless animal!" in her dreams! That animal responds to his mistress much the same way she responds to everything! With neanderthal primalism and feral displays of dominance more at home with a pack of gorillas than actual, civilized human beings! It hasn't been a full day and Marge already ruined Dudley's vacation. And Vernon is purple in the face! I gave the room a quick sweep, trying to see if Petunia had his medication at hand. Yep, there it was, by the fridge. She had it in one of her handbags that was inconspicuous enough for Dudley not to get curious. Good. One less thing to worry about.

Lunch was a complete nightmare and I couldn't do more than glare death, murder and mayhem at my dearest Aunt Marge. Petunia was no better, but she was far better at keeping her hostile thoughts to herself. Either that or she was a meeker woman than I, which was not necessarily a bad thing, to be honest. One does not survive life by being confrontational all the time.

The afternoon was marked, literally, by Ripper peeing on Petunia's prized rug in the entrance hallway, with Marge commending Ripper's supreme alpha male genes, while also making derogatory comments about worthless bitches that should've been drowned at birth or some such. Either she was talking about me or my mother. In either case, I tried my best to ignore the obvious attempt to rile me up. The moment I answer back to that woman was the moment when I either get hit by her or get bit by her probably rapid dog. I thought English Bulldogs were supposed to be good with children! How was Petunia expecting to have us live with that woman for two weeks with that obvious danger to humanity that she was lugging about like a chihuahua?

Fuck it, I'm rummaging the medical cabinet for any sort of sleeping pills. If I can't find any, I'll ask Petunia to get some. I want to get back home to Private Drive alive if not in one piece, after all.

My aunt finally had enough and had Dudley and myself go play with Piers Polkiss. I knew an argument was probably going to go on in the house, which I've honestly never seen before and, on that ground alone, I was tempted to sneak back in just to watch the show. My common sense won over my desperate desire for some mayhem, and I stuck with Dudley, although my mind was mostly wandering back in the house.

Dinner was a tense affair, though Dudley didn't really notice as Marge had given him a super expensive toy, specifically a very expensive rendition of Optimus Prime, over which Dudley was gushing like a newly engaged woman over her huge diamond ring. That thing will be in pieces in a matter of days, mark my words. At least Dudley wasn't as distressed as he had been during lunch.

I was dreading going anywhere with Marge, but I couldn't just leave Dudley all on his lonesome. Marge was surely going to ruin any and all progress that I had with him and Dudley needed small daily reminders for his Math and English that I've been tentatively teaching him.

Marge was to stay with us for a few days before we'd be off to her home. I doubted she could handle going back and forth with a train on the same day, especially not with Ripper in toll. Marge was like the (d)evolved form of Vernon, only female. She was quite the corpulent lady, with a mighty set of shoulders, a waistline surpassing Vernon's and the most incorrigible neglect of girl'stache I've ever seen in my life. At least Vernon's mustache was impressive and well groomed. Hers was like genital peach fuzz gone wrong and trimmed for extra, uh, effect. At least she was a light colored woman, with a pale face and pale, dull reddish-blonde hair that somewhat made a person second-guess the girl'stache for some sort of shadow on her face. I've been staring at it in its full glory and it never ceased to amaze me how this woman, who dressed sensibly and smartly, despite her weight, would just let that thing there... The hardest part of glaring death, murder, and mayhem onto her was trying not to focus on her girl'stache, which was nearly a lost battle after all those years. If anything, the 'stache has gotten more impressive, much like circumference of her skirts. At least Petunia was going to do something about Vernon's size. Aunt Marge had been a lost battle from the get-go.

On the day when we were to set forth to Marge's countryside abode, I had an almost tearful farewell with Piers and Paul, while Dudley cried his small child heart out, followed closely by Petunia in dramatic performance. Vernon was mostly stoic, but I swear that his eyes looked only slightly more shimmery than usual. He's a tough cookie when it came to maintaining his manly man authority. I found that about him endearing.

Because Vernon and Petunia were to set out for London to catch their flight, Marge had to get back to the train station with us via a taxi cab. Dudley sat in the middle, while I was on one side and Aunt Marge and her infernal monster on the other. The taxi driver almost did not take us at the sight of the dog's nasty disposition. Marge simply waved money in his face and solved the problem before it was voiced. It was obvious to me for quite some time that whatever Marge couldn't solve with violence, she solved with her money. The only reason Dudley had agreed to sit next to her at all was because I had told him that if he was nice enough to her, he'd get more toys. Yes, yes, I know. It was completely contradictory to what I've been trying to instill in him, but I valued my self-preservation at least a bit. Had I sat next to Marge, that dog would've bitten me by now. The drive to the train station was tense and I was as trying to make myself as small and as quiet as possible.

My thoughts briefly ran through the clothes Petunia had prepared for us. Dudley got himself two full trunks in the back of the taxi cab. One was half with clothes and half with toys, the other was entirely stuffed with toys, some candy and treats that could be safely stored for a while and I myself got a small bag in which she had placed several of my dresses (I had no idea where she stored my clothing most of the time, several of Dudley's hand-me-downs, the obvious purpose of which was to keep my regular, good dresses from being destroyed by Marge's kennel, and (surprise, surprise) a small wrapped package which contained some sleeping pills. Petunia and I may not see eye to eye, but both of us had very similar opinions when it came to Marge Dursley and her vicious dog, Ripper.

The pills weren't so much for my safety as they were to keep that thing from ripping my clothes. The woman had her priorities, you see. Either way, that small package gave me some courage for the upcoming days of hell and I tried to think up of ways to have this entirely different environment work with whatever education I wanted to impart on Dudley for the duration of our vacation.

Aboard the train we had our own coupe all to ourselves and the conductor was obviously intimidated by Marge's English Pitbull. That thing seemed ready to attack at the slightest provocation, mostly due to Marge's behavior. Marge was aggressively posturing, to put it simply, showcasing her dominance in a way that spoke of imminent danger, one that could quickly escalate from simple animal posturing to actual violence. Marge and Ripper sat on one side of the coup with Marge taking three whole seats and the fourth was for Ripper, while Dudley and I were huddled by the window, with Dudley lying down, his head in my lap, playing with his new Optimus toy while I was trying to be calm and gaze out through the window.

Did you know this was the first time in my memory of this life that I was leaving Little Whining? Despite it all, this was still quite exhilarating for me as I watched the trees, bushes, and hills rushing by the window. In my past life, I traveled quite often. It was hard for me to stay in one place for very long and I often found myself visiting my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and my cousins all the time. I also tended to spend most of my Summer with MJ, who was a British native, but it was usually she that visited me for longer periods of time than myself. Not for the first time my brain wandered in the usually forbidden territory of what ifs, could have beens, would have beens, and possibilities. I didn't want to get my hopes up this early in this new life of mine. While MJ's parents were fairly well known (her father was a Viscount), there was still no guarantee that they'd exist here and that we are in the same universe. Hell, what if there was a version of myself that would run around when I'd least expect it. What then?

Oh, I knew what I'd do. I'd help myself out, keep my distance, watch from the shadows, and save myself the heartbreak that was Leo. If this was truly my past, then there were so many things that I could do differently... there were so many things that I could change for the better. These were all such tantalizing thoughts that I tried to keep myself from them as much as possible. It was such an amazing feeling, to actually know the future. But at the same time, it was a responsibility that weighed greatly on my shoulders – what if the things I knew were of a future, not THE future? There is a world difference between those, don't you just love the appropriateness of this statement? I had the world in the palm of my hand and I was incapable of doing anything about it. At least not right now. No one expected of a nearly seven-year-old to be the savior of the world. Children should be left to childhood. It was the adults that should do all the hero work.

It was late afternoon by the time we arrived at Marge's home. She lived deep in the countryside and her particular living arrangements were surrounded by large amounts of green, lush hills and the nearest neighbor was at least half a mile away. The closest of Marge's lands to her house were surrounded by a tall, secure fence and I could hear dogs barking even as we barely approached with our ride from one Colonel Fubster, I think Marge likes him, the poor man!

Fubster's a pretty awesome guy from what I've seen so far. He's a retired Colonel, never really caught his first name. Maybe Fubster is his first name? It doesn't matter. Man's as decent as they made them back in the day. He even smiled and was nice to me and all that, which was such a change from what I was used to. I smiled back and curtsied, milking the situation as best as I could, while Marge was batting her nearly non-existent eyelashes at him. A sorry sight, I tell you.

Apparently, Fubster's our neighbor and he takes care of the dogs in the kennel while Marge is out of town. He's a good, honorable man. There is something about him that instantly makes you think that of him. Some people just give off good vibes. Which was the exact opposite with Marge, of course.

The Colonel helped us with our luggage. He assumed one trunk was mine and the other Dudley's and I simply smiled politely, pulling Dudley to look at the kennel to stop him from correcting Fubster on that assumption of his. I knew my cousin, that special snowflake of mine well enough.

"Oh, thank you, Colonel! You are always such a help to me, I really don't know what I would've done hadn't you been around!"

Marge waxed poetic about Fubster's greatness for some twenty minutes before he managed to retreat. That's the fastest I've seen anyone get the hell out of dodge without actually running, I must say, to my great amusement.

The bedrooms were on the second floor of the house and, thankfully, Fubster had left Dudley's trunks there. I held my little bag with my own clothes and silently stood by Dudley as Marge showed him the room he'd be staying at. When she did not appoint a room for me I did not say anything. I awaited my verdict with trepidation as the corpulent woman turned her flesh in my direction.

"You, leech, will sleep downstairs. I will not have a good-for-nothing freeloader corrupting my household! I have no idea how Vernon even stands you in his presence, you mongrel of a child! Look at you, a scrawny, ugly little thing! You should've died with your no-good mother and your wastrel of a father! What are you standing there, looking at me like that for!? Get out of my sight!"

her voice thundered at the end and I calmly made my way down, intimately aware of the violent thing that was squirming in her arms.

Calm, collected and non-existent was going to be my game plant for this vacation. Marge may like Fubster but I doubted I could rely on his frequent visits to stave off this mad Dursley's ravings and habits. This was Vernon's doing, years and years of it and if I knew one thing for certain, it was that I wouldn't be leaving this house without scars.

I stood alone on the first floor in her large and well-decorated reception room. Most of the furniture was old but well-kept and of obvious high quality. I wasn't certain how these pricey antiques held against her rapid monsters, but it seemed she held her dogs at bay with the same discipline she applied to Vernon and his family.

Marge was a rich woman and her house was a good proof of that. It was a large, three-story building, excluding the attic which was located in the roof area. The house was twice as big as Vernon's. It was not their family home since I heard Vernon and Petunia discuss how she had moved here.

I looked around myself, clutching my small bag of clothes, and I tried to make sense of my surroundings. Marge was not like Mrs. Figg. She did not have pictures of cats all over the place, but she did not have pictures of her family either, much like the Dursleys that I knew. Instead, every single free space on the walls was occupied by one of two things – certificates from winning dog competitions or hunting trophies. Marge also had an extensive collection of shelves, rafters, and generally cupboards showcasing awards and souvenirs. Her reception room was more or less a temple to her own sense of self-importance. There was nothing there that spoke of comfort or some sort of familial affection or the like. The environment was as personal as the interior of a hunting lodge turned into a hotel without really changing anything. There were tons of things all over, but nothing else save for shows of power.

From the reception room, I found myself down a hallway and into what I think was a regular living room. Just like the reception room, this one was not suitable as a sleeping place. The last thing I wanted was to be awoken by a kick from that cow or a bite from her monster, Ripper. The Living room was connected to the Dining room by a large arch, similar to how it was back in Privet Drive, but, again nothing in the interior spoke of family, warmth, or comfort.

Passing the Dining room that was just as useless to me as the Living room, I found myself in the kitchen, which was twice as large as Petunia's. I looked at the appliances, the oven, and the Fridge, noting their brands and their quality, which surpassed Petunia's own. I idly wondered if Petunia was jealous of Marge's fortune, for she was prone to occasional bouts of said emotion which lead to a new chapter in the Petty Desperate Housewives of Little Whining Wars Saga.

No, the kitchen wouldn't do either, but there were a few small rooms adjacent to the kitchen, especially one that, ironically, seemed to be situated under Marge's grand staircase. It looked like a small storage room, but there was a small, old sofa that could probably extend into a bed, as well as a few shelves with old, dusty books. There were a few large bags with what I think was dog food, but, to be honest, at this point I was just glad to have found somewhere to sleep, where Marge probably wouldn't yell at me for too long. After all, I wasn't aiming too high during this vacation. So long as I was not forced to sleep with the dogs in the kennels, I would be fine.

When dinner was announced, I was surprised that Marge let me sit at the table. When she announced that Fubster was going to be present, I went from surprised to subtle and quickly changed from Dudley's hand-me-downs into a proper dress and I brushed my hair into something more presentable. I think Marge glared at me extra hard before Fubster arrived because she was not expecting me to know how to braid my hair. Well, when life gives you lemons, make grape juice and let the world wonder. In my case, I just used my extra 24 years of experience to do some good old-fashioned subtle mindfuckery.

Dinner with Fubster was an entertaining affair. The Colonel regaled both myself and Dudley with stories about the battles he had been in, as well as the training he had undergone over the years and stories about his friends and teammates from the army.

In my past life, I had an aunt, my paternal grandfather's oldest daughter, who had pursued a military career like her old man and had married a military man later on. She had three children, my cousins Albert, Wolfgang, and Brian, with Al being the oldest and Brian being the youngest. Brian was also my largest cousin, easily towering over everyone in my family and his body was made out of one hundred percent beef. I called them my Viking Boys. I missed them.

Fubster reminded me of them and their antics very much and I took as much shine to him as he did to me. For some reason, the old man found me absolutely precious, much to Aunt Marge's chagrin. I hoped that would be a reason for him to visit even more often because his presence made sure that Marge wouldn't do something too obvious in terms of hurting me for the sake of her screwed up vision of proper discipline.

When the Colonel left with promises to show us his home, Aunt Marge had a few spiteful words to tell me about the appropriateness of my sleeping place, as well as a few threats including having me sleep in the dirtiest part of her kennels to show me my place. I thought of my special care package Petunia had given me and I made it a point to hide it well. Marge was sure to check my belongings when I wasn't looking. Anything and everything was a weapon against me. But the same applied vice-versa.

Just like everything else in this life, I knew I was going to hate this vacation with Marge, but at the same time, I knew that I was going to enjoy the challenge of overcoming this obstacle. There was a lot of nature to explore and many things to teach Dudley about dogs whenever Marge wouldn't be looking. But most importantly, I was armed with a whole bunch of sleeping pills, and, if anything I knew about Marge held true, I was certain I could have her dozing peacefully for hours on end without her being any wiser.

 **To Be Continued...**


	7. Life finds a way pt2

Morning comes earlier on during summer and waking up in Marge's home came with the bonus event of yelping hungry English Bulldogs. Marge's heavy footsteps down the staircase marked the end of whatever rest I planned to have as I quickly changed from my pajamas and into something that would handle whatever that walrus-woman had planned for me. Dudley, of course, would be blissfully asleep until evening if Marge had anything to say about it. But if I was to suffer through Marge's antics alone, that simply would not do! I knew my Dudders well enough – give him some promise of adventure, remind him that he was the mighty Thor and come up with a quest for us to tackle as some sort of game and we'd be off faster than you can say Mjolnir (which Dudley still can't pronounce, much to my amusement).

When Fubster drove us to Aunt Marge's house, I had the privilige to get somewhat aqccuaintanced with what would likely be in store for both myself and my cousin. I couldn't fault Marge's taste in scenery, not one bit. The village wasn't too close to her home but it was well within walking distance for both myself and Dudley and I really wanted to go explore. Also, the further away I was from Marge and her hell hound, the better.

By the time Marge had gone down the stairs and into the kitchen, I was already seated primly in one of the chairs, hair carefully groomed into two twin buns and as out of the way as I could make it on such short notice. Marge stopped her waddle and glared imperiously at me, after which she chose to ignore me because she couldn't find anything to gripe about. Strangely enough Ripper wasn't with her but I figured he was eating upstairs in her bedroom. Of course Marge would set up a bowl for her own personal special snowflake, in her bedroom no less.

I did not say anything as she did not say anything as well. I could have wished her a good morning but wishing her well in any sense would leave a tremendously bitter taste in my mouth so I refrained from doing so. I merely sat primly in my chair, looking as rested and as attentive as I could muster if only to annoy her. Marge, despite her care for her pooches, was obviously not a morning person. Her eyes were slightly blood shot, her face was somewhat red and she may or may not have problems with the blood pressure, similar to Uncle Vernon, but right now I couldn't give a rat's ass about the woman's health. What I did care about was that Marge was quite the alcohol connoseur and thus I think she may have had a bit too much glasses of wine last night during dinner. And perhaps even before she went to bed. She might as well have a lovely hangover at this point of time, something that I took great pleasure in, considering our grand mutual dislike for each other. Red wine also tended to give far more hang overs than white wine ever did. Marge fancied red wine over white wine.

Marge got herself a glass of water and refilled her glass three times before she opened the fridge to take a look at its contents. Yep, definitely hungover that one. Oh, how fiendishly delighted this made me, despite the early hour. While Marge was getting food out of the fridge for breakfast, I got some more thinking done. Aunt Petunia's gotten me Xanax. Xanax and myself have a very special relationship because of the fact that I've been perscribed it many times by my therapist, despite my vehement and outright refusal to have anything to do with that drug. Still, I knew what it was. It was a type of benzodiazepine. And those types of drugs had a very specific effect upon the central nervous system, controlling seizure activity, reducing anxiety, easing muscle spasms and relieving insomnia. Funny fact – Britain is the second largest country that buys xanax under the counter. I don;t know if that applies in the 80ies but I do know that if things with Ripper don't pan out, drugging my lovely Aunt Marge is very much still an option. I had three packs of Xanax, which was more than enough for the duration of my stay here with Dudley. But if I was to apply the Xanax to Aunt Marge, I needed to take careful consideration of her state of health and I needed to be quick about it. I made a note to look over her skin in case she had even the slightest hint of jaundice. She was a pink warthog all over, so, sadly, no liver disease at first glance. Her liver markers are probably even still holding up well. No signs of insulin spots or other skin lesions to indicate diabetes type two. Her legs and feet looked promising, though. Her feet seemed swollen, though I doubt she'd let me touch them to determine if the swelling was of the doughy or the hard variety. There was some definite problems with vein drainage going on. Other than that and her impressive weight, I didn't see anything that immediately spoke to me of some disease or the other.

"Make yourself useful, leech, and set the table!" the walrus, I mean, the woman barked at me and I stood up with ingrained at this point reflex and replied almost automatically:

"Yes, Aunt Marge."

I took the dishes from where she pointed with her big fat index finger. Damn, for a supposedly well groomed woman with expensive taste those were some impressively ungly finger...

Of course! The nails!

Now, I don't really remember much of what I read about nail conditions and the underlying systemic disorders causing them but that tell tale if faint brown arch on her ugly ass nails was definitely one of those nail conditions I've seen as a picture.

Call me a vengeful bitch. Call me petty. Call me whatever you want. I just don't care if that bitch dies. I don't give a flying fuck. That woman may as well have worsened Vernon's condition and she did that to assert her dominance over Vernon and his family! As far as I care, I am far more inclined to help the Dursleys of Little Whinging that to even entertain thoughts of making this woman aware of her health problems.

Okay. I have Xanax and I know she has a drinking problem at the very least. She lives alone with dogs and out in the middle of nowhere. She doesn't trust doctors (she made that painfully obvious in the last few days, as well as her undying, valiant support of all things Mrs. Thatcher). She has probably a too large amount of underlying conditions given her negligence towards all things medical. The closest neighbour is half a mile away and it's the friggen 80ies. Of course you know where I am heading with this. It's a set up for getting away with perfect murder. The problem is that Petunia bought this Xanax either the legal way or talked a pharmacist friend into helping out with it. So, it can be traced more or less back to me. So I can't use it to murder Marge. And no, I don't plan on murdering Marge, though I am pretty sure that there are plenty of things that are native in the house to make it the perfect crime to get away with. And yes, the thought amuses me greatly, if only because how ridiculously easy it would be. To get away with it, I mean.

But Petunia will probably figure it out. And then things would go down hill rapidly, which would be annoying to deal with. So I will just have nature take its course and not speed things up. If my luck holds the way its been holding up for the past...what is it now... I am almost seven and Life started fucking me over right about before I finished high school in my previous life...so that makes it, like, seven ( I am almost seven, alright? Give or take a month) plus nine... So, let's say sixteen years and I am being on the cheap side with the years, okay? So yes, Life has been bending me over like I'm its personal bitch for the past sixteen years, and... I just realized I am, like thirty-one years old or so now. Wow. Three decades and still doing nothing with my life. Doesn't that just rub me the wrong way or what?

Uff...

As soon as this whole Aunt Marge debacle is over I am breezing through school, not giving two flying fucks about anything. I want my Nobel prize or something. Or go to Mars. Yeah, definitely go to Mars. Or, I don't know, invent something awesome. Just... just stop wasting my time feeling sorry for myself or trying to survive. I want to take my life in my own hands and make it awesome. Is that just too much to ask?

Oh. Apparently I completely zoned out through Aunt Marge's tirade on how useless I am and what wretches my parents had been. Have they ever met in person? Hold on. I am asking her. Seriously, I want to know because this woman is just being so strongly opinionated about myself and my parents. That and I am feeling particularly emotionally peaky at the moment.

"Aunt Marge, did you know my parents? You sound like you grew up with them to have known them so well."

I watch in fascination as Marge's face changes colors in much the same way Uncle Vernon's did. It's unhealthy amusement, really, and especially dangerous and probably self-deprecating in more ways than I want to admit. But no one can deny that there is a subtle, delicate poetry to the act of rustling someone's Jimmies to the point of self-combustion just because you can. You know, for shits and giggles. And by that analogy, back in my previous life, I was a world renowned poet of by third grade.

I still don't understand how I got through the morning without getting backhanded into one of the walls like a wet paper handkerchief. I did get to shovel lots of dog shit, though. With a big ass shovel that was probably twice my size. I did not complain because whether she planned on having me do that or not, I kind of deserved this. Dog shit aside, the morning's chin wagging was totally worth it.

At lunch I was surprised Marge even allowed me to eat at the table again. She had be go through the bathroom to scrub me raw, which was both appreciated and a dreadful experience. She may or may not have cracked a rib or two and I probably have a few bruises from her vigorous scrubbing, but at least I smelled of her Channel Shower Gel. I am still fucking green at the sight of her bathroom body cleansing products. There was Channel and Dior shower gels, which were like 50 euro a piece. There were expensive face mask packs that I was of half of mind smuggling back to Little Whinging. Her collection of bath fragnance pearls was exquisite and reminded me greatly of MJ's own indulgences when it came to bath time. Woman loved her bubble baths, ok? But back to Marge's bathroom. It was huge and it was connected to the master bedroom. Ripper stood at the door, hating the very sight of water and soaps but still determined enough to watch me with his huge bloodthirsty eyes in case I did something to Marge. Marge was a large, ahem, woman, so, naturally, her bath was just as large. So it was something between a mini-pool and a jacuzzi but in the form of a bath tub.

What this ordeal taught me: Marge will always give you your just due. Apparently I've done well in the kennels, by her own words, so I kind of dreaded the highly probable future of being on kennel cleaning duty for the rest of this wretched vacation . By the time my hair was dry and I was wearing clean clothes Dudley was finally out and about, loudly demanding sustenance. Marge immediately obliged, taking Ripper with her, though he watched me intently over her shoulder with a dark promise in his eyes that sort of reminded me of a deep, cinematic narrator type of voice dramatically and morbidly intoning "Soon!" to the fading to dark background of a movie screen.

I fear for my life when it comes to that dog, okay? Note to self, wear some form of protection, like a knife or something. If dog attacks, aim for eyes, avoid jaws at all cost. Any larger piece of wood to smack it with would also do. The problem is I am not a 24 year old with build up muscle and experience with some self-defense, but a scrawny girl with noodles for arms.

At lunch Marge gave Dudley five hearty helpings which made me in turn give her a skeptical and disapproving look. I've been trying to turn fat into muscle mass for years now, and she will undo all my hard work in two weeks time. Dudley needs exercise straight away!

"Boss, wanna go exploring? The Colonel said there's a path that leads to the village nearby! It'll be awesome!"

Here's the thing about Dudley. I call him Boss and he does what I say. Life's neat that way, you know, lemons and grape juice and all that. It only works when I am alone with Dudley though, which is way too rare an occasion.

Cue Dudley loudly declaring we are going out to play and that he wants me with him to carry his bag with his toys and candy. Done and done. Marge dotes over Dudley's whims almost as much as Petunia does, except Petunia is an actual mother with a better understanding of the fact that human children and dogs are, in fact, two very different entities that require specialized and DIFFERENT types of handling that has to be done with care. I've already made my opinion on Petunia's mothering skills, both its ups and downs. I compare Marge to that and the hand I use as Petunia's scale is a little bellow my shoulder. The hand I use as Marge's part of the scale will sink to Hong Kong had it been able to. As it is, it hits the ground lamely.

Marge also approves of my use as Dudley's personal backpack. Yes. Marge is a femminist and all about female equality in all the worst ways, including the fact Dudley's pack is about half my size. At least we got bottles with water. I think I saw a cute little creek at one point between the village and Marge's doghouse (get it? Hehe). It looked clean enough for the quick glance I got of it, but I don't trust non-filtered and non-boiled water, especially not one out in nature and near a small settlement with farm animals nearby. Was leptospirosis a thing in Britain? Doesn't matter. The suspicion is there and I will go the safe route and not drink that water. I'd rather be stuck lugging water than be stuck in a hospital anyday, thank you very much! 

It's early afternoon, there isn't a cloud in the sky, I count my blessings that Petunia packed sun screen for Dudley (that I also used on myself after I covered him thoroughly with the stuff). We are a pair of pale-ass white kids in the middle of summer. It's a spell for midsummer nightmares that involve sunburns. I don't think I've ever seen this much sun in Little Whining. Where exactly did Marge live, anyway? Ah well.

"Hey, You've got Starscream and your old Optimus?" I noted to Dudley as I checked what he had put in his travel bag (that I will be lugging. Just a little reminder, in case the first time this was mentioned was missed).

"I got Bublebee with me and I thought you'd like Starscream with us too." he replied simply as he raised his other hand to show him holding Bumblebee in it.

I blinked at his surprising revelation. When did Dudley become mindful of my own interests? I cleared my throat and busied myself with the bag, all the while absolutely not wiping away a stray emotional tear or two when Dudley wouldn't notice.

Dudley's room is really nice, by the way. Like everything else in Marge's house, however, thought was only given on how expensive and luxurious something would be, but much was left in terms of actual comfort and relaxation that should be assosiated with bedroom interior designing. From what I could see, there were at least four bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor. With the small bathroom slash laundry room on the first floor, that made for a total of three bathrooms. I wondered if I'd be able to eventually check out the attic, for perfectly altruistic purposes, you see. That and I really wanted to leave a nice, nasty surprise for Marge somewhere or a few somewheres in the house that'll take weeks of festering until they'd finally bloom into something spectacularly horrid that she'd have the horror to deal with without the inconvenience of connecting it with yours truly. Yes, I am vindictive and petty, and I WILL go great lengths to give people their just desserts. And this time around there was no Harry* _[A/N: Harrietta's cousin Harrison]_ , or MJ (or Leo) to dissuade me from my plots. That and it keeps me up at night knowing I can probably get away with something and, you know, not actually do it. Which was kind of different from my fantasies involving various ways in which I murder Marge and get away with it Scot-free. Those kind of, sort of, help me be the better person in the situation, knowing I have the power and the ability to pull it off but not act on it. Because, you know, I am the better person in the situation. Sort of like reverse psychology but not really.

Anyways. It was a good idea I slabbered us both heavily in sunscreen cream. It was setting out to be a scorching day full of who knows how long treking. It shouldn't be longer than an hour or so in one direction. I made a note to keep the road Colonel Fubster used in sight just in case we got lost. Still, I was exhited. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the breeze was rustling the leaves and the hills were a sea of green, shiny waves of viridian and gold, and this was my first time away from Little Whining. And, despite Aunt Marge, all of it was beautiful and wonderful and I took a deep breath of the fresh air, enjoying myself. I wanted to explore and discover all of this with Dudley by my side. To show him the beauty of the world that surrounded us. To teach him appreciation of things that couldn't be bought, like sunshine, fresh air and nature. We were just a bunch of seven year olds holding Transformers in our hands and with shit-eating, eager grins on our faces and with flushed cheeks.

I was happy.

The trek down the hill where Marge's house was located was more or less easy, though I imagined the dirt road would be pure hell come any and all sprinkles of rain. She'd do well to invest in paving this son of a bitch before someone (namely Colonel Fubster) toppled their car over from the mud and the relatively sharp angle of the hill's slope, especially mid-way up the road. From our vantage point we could see there was a bit of a forest thing going on before the village itself, which was kind of cool. It also presented a possibility for an inexperienced child to get itself lost if going in the wrong direction. I looked over to Dudley's feet and noted that he was at least wearing decent enough shoes for walking through shrubbery if needed. A thorough check for tics would be mandatory. Did we get that disinfectant gel from Dudley's things? Yeah, it was in my pocket. And one in the bag as well. Petunia was a neat freak like packs three times the amounts needed when Dudley is involved. And Dudley tended to touch stuff that was more or less of questionable sanitization. Better be safe than sorry.

Once we got to the beginning of the foresty area, we followed the road as close to the shade of the trees as we could and we reveled in the nice cool breeze that came from underneath the shady thicket. The road was pretty much deserted save for that one older fellow we saw herding a bunch of goats. We smiled and waved at the man, who smiled and waved in turn. It was nice. Not having to shy away from people because reasons. And reasons included Petunia and Vernon and for the next two weeks Marge as well. It was kind of exciting in a seven year old way to be making our way to the village since there was the promise of icecream waiting for us at the local shop. I had fond memories of the summers I've spend in Belgium with my maternal grandparents. Or, rather, of the icecream that for a little while got me away from my overly stern grandmother and granfather. Apparently the scowl I got going on, that I still have in this life? Well, that thing of beauty was inherited from my mother's side of the family. Fun facts with Harrietta, Past Life Edition!

I love lemon icecream to death. The kind sold in those tiny little cups with plastic little spoons. Marge gave Dudley obsene amount of money to by himself whatever he wanted. Of course I will benefit of that to the best of my ability, though getting Dudley not to tell Marge about it would still be a dangerous endeavour. Well, I do like living dangerously, so icecream it is!

We found the small creek I had seen with relative ease. I had to warn Dudley not to get too close because the rocks can be slippery and he'd find himself headfirst into a dangerous situation that would, in turn, probably find myself one head short after Marge executes me and feeds my innards to the dogs in her kennel. I know exactly what she'd write on my epitaph. She who shoveled shit, becomes shit. Or something like that that completes her viscious dog shit cycle.

We found a nice big rock to sit on that wasn't too far from the creek and I pulled out the sandwiches Marge had made as well as the water bottles.

"But I wanted juice!" Dudley whined, of course.

"But if I got you juice now you'd be even more thirsty later." I told him calmly, ignoring his whining. The trick to Dudley wrangling was knowing when to give in to his constant pestering. Since he reacts best to praise that is rarely given, I've sort of been subcosnciously conditioning him to react better to praise than to material rewards. You'd think that's hard, but because Dudley constantly gets stuff like that from everyone but me, and since he has very little regard for the value of things in general, he likes it a lot when I give him genuine praise for something he considers very hard to do. Like actual thinking. Making it as heartfelt as possible wasn't hard, considering that at this point, I am practically co-raising Dudley with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. And get this – Dudley's two whopping months older than me to boot.

I've gotten really far in the last few years, haven't I? I still reside in that damn cupboard under the stairs but, perhaps, someday soon, I shall move to Dudley's second bedroom. Baby steps and persistence. I will get there. I let out a slow breath to calm myself and let go of my worries and I focus on what I have right now in the present.

Dudley is happily munching on his food and taking generous gulps of water.

"Remember to keep some water until we get to the village, boss."

"But why? I can refill from the creek."

"The creek might not look it, but it's dirty. Besides, where'd you think those goats came from? What if they drank water from the same creek? I wouldn't want to drink goat spit water. Would you?"

See what I did there? It works every time. Basically, from all of what I said, Dudley got the part where I'd supposedly said he'd drink goat spit water.

"Nuh huh!We'll get juice from the village."

Every. Friggen. Time. Best part? Petunia does it too. But she's a lot more subtle and less underhanded than yours truly. Petunia and I may be mentally of the same age, but that woman beats me on some aspects of social subterfuge. I'm a lot better than her with actual warfare, like how many warlocks and their soustones you need to get from point A to point B without dying and distracting the enemy long enough to get the last bloody flag. Hehe. That had been a good ass battleground victory. Ahem.

"Hey, Harry?"

"Ye, boss?"

"Do you think dad will be okay?"

Oh poor dear, how I need to hug you!

"Your dad is awesome and tough as nails, Dudley. Plus your mom is there, too. He'd be better than okay. Just make sure not to forget to call them like you did last night. You were asleep when Marge got the call from your mum."

Dudley had the decency to cringe at my words. He is getting better at the whole decent human being thing. It's slow but its progress none the less.

"Hey Dudley?"

"Yeah, Harry?"

"Wanna ask Colonel Fubster to visit his place next time we see him? I bet he has a lot more interesting stuff than all of Marge's boring dog stuff."

I don't think Dudley really notices that I don't refer to Marge as aunt when it's just the two of us. Or maybe he does but doesn't really care about it. To be honest, it's a frightening thought, come to think of it. Just how much actually passes by Dudley and how much he catches. I mean, is he like heavy water, catching the occasional neutrino glimmer, or more like a bucket full of forgotten, dirty tap water that mosquitos lay their eggs in. Ugh. Okay, bad second analogy. Gave me shivers. Yuck. Anyways, I should be more careful about Dudley. After all, it is I who is teaching him and there is always the miniscule chance of the apprentice surpassing the master and all that sith stuff.

I will have nightmares about Dudley tonight and I did this to myself.

We got to the village without incident. It was a small thing, as small as it looked at our first passing by and, again by the looks of it, we were the only children in a town of middle age and up people. That meant two things. Either we were going to be scolded a lot for interrupting their daily lives or... we would be spoiled rotten.

Please be the second thing! I haven't been doted on in twenty or more years and I need some pampering in my life! I should've practiced my cute puppy face! Can I even do cute puppy faces with these caterpillars above my eyes? Screw it! Have Dudley do the rambunctious but cute boy thing. He's good at that and it's tried and tested . It wasn't time for any risky experiments. Results mattered here! Like free icecream! It was so hot and I'd kill for icecream! Preferably Marge as my target. What? It's my own personal inside joke now. Don't judge!

 **To be Continued**


	8. Life finds a way pt3

Despite everything, I am determined to enjoy my vacation in the English countryside. I've never been to a place like this in particular. Perhaps the French countryside but everything was a tad bit too different to make the comparison. The air was different, the people were different... the times were different too. And with everything else came Dudders, who was enjoying his relative adult-free time with me. To be perfectly honest, at the moment I felt more Harrietta than I did Fiona. Most of the time I did not really distinguish any particular differences with the before Me and the now Me. The before Me was... a spiteful little bitch and the now me was no different, though I made sure to keep any and all salty comments to myself. My previous care-free and, honestly, quite insulting behavior would get me nowhere here. I had matured, I guess, even if that came along with actually becoming a child again. It was fucked up and I tried not to think about it often. Naturally, I think about it almost all the time. Without the constantly vigilant presence of Petunia and her husband Vernon, I felt as if I could take a breath of fresh air and relax, if only for a few moments.

Dudley and I were sitting by the side of the road (pretty much the only road in this village, it seemed) and we were eating ice cream. The sun was beating hard against our pale skin, but the sunscreen was doing its job more or less. Still, I was certain we'd come home with at least a bit of a tan and I hoped Petunia would appreciate my hard work at keeping her boy nice and sunburn free, as well as happy.

My earlier assessment that we were the only kids in the area turned out to be true. Dudley was hugely disappointed to find out that the local store did not sell any child themed ice cream but I told him that instead of being angry he should be happy to have an opportunity to experience something new. The lady at the counter was nice enough to provide us with two spoons as we dug into our shared ice cream. It was a good one, vanilla with forest berries and some awesome berry syrup on top. Dudley chose it of course. Personally, I was just happy to partake into the yummy, cold thing that was mostly in Dudley's hands. After all, how can you not be happy when ice cream was being used as a way to teach the importance of making an informed, independent choice.

Dudley declared this was now his favorite ice cream. He was so enthusiastic I didn't have the heart to tell him his journey to icecream mountain had barely begun. We took our time eating it. It wasn't too big an icecream container, but Duddley was happily chatting away about nothing in particular with me giving the occasional thoughtful nod or even verbal input. I always did my best to stimulate Dudley's mental development and at the same time provide him with the attention he needed (and not the one he wanted). I wanted Dudley to be mindful of other human beings, as well as mindful of himself, the latter of which he already had plenty. Old people, well, middle-aged actually but to a couple of seven-year-olds anything above thirty or so was supposed to have an obituary and not a conversation with you, but I digress. Locals passed us by and gave us smiles, asked us who we are and where we came from. Generally the usual small town, gossip-based, supposedly good-natured interrogation that aimed to feed the grapevine for the next few days.

"And who is this aunt of yours?" one old lady (actual old lady) asked with a sickeningly sweet baby voice and I had to suppress the urge to scowl at her tone of voice out of the sheer principle that I despised people doing baby voices.

"Aunt Marge, of course!" answered Dudley, and you just had to be there to believe the speed with which her expression did a one-eighty from nice and friendly, to something akin to a devil being splashed with freshly blessed holy water. Which, by the way, went completely over Dudley's head, as he was trying to finish the ice cream before it all melted. I was more focused on keeping eye contact with this woman and studying her body language and reactions. That everyone more or less hated Marge after a certain period of time passed, went without saying. But would that hatred extend to us? I wasn't feeling particularly threatened but, just in case, my mind supplied to me the fact that we were two pretty much defenseless children in a small village full of people who basically had their faction reputation at Hated with our current benefactor, Marge the Amazing Walrus, Queen of Fine Cuisine, Conqueror of Liquor and Mother of English Bulldogs. I was just a scrawny seven-year-old with a small pocket knife that I had swiped from somewhere in my current room and I've yet to get the chance to train Dudley to run away at a moment's notice. Stranger Danger is a _Thing_ and I generally hold animosity for any and all strangers until proven safe for me to approach them.

The old woman talked a bit more with Dudley and then made a super lame excuse to get away from us so that she could spread whatever information she had gotten out of us through her network of "friends". I just felt mildly insulted by the whole thing because children of seven or so are quite capable of discerning insulting behavior that is veiled by sickeningly sweet bigotry. Have I mentioned how much I despise bigots? Let's leave it out here for all to see, then. I particularly hate the stupid variety of two-faced shovels, mostly because they insult my intelligence – the one thing I would always take great pride in.

Dudley finished the ice cream, I took his spoon and threw it away along with mine and the now empty ice cream container. I looked at his watch and made a note to start heading back. Marge should be waking up- I mean, Marge should be expecting us to go back soon. I asked the shop lady to fill up our bottles with water and we were about to head back towards Marge's home when a car stopped right beside us.

"Colonel Fubster!" Dudley exclaimed as he skipped towards the man in the driving seat.

"Oh ho! A couple of young explorers, are we?" the colonel smiled warmly as Dudley prattled away about our outing. There was something sad about his smile but I was more focused on not making it look like I've been dragging this huge backpack all over the place on my lonesome. It had gotten considerably lighter since we ate the sandwiches and drank most of the water, but now it was heavy again with the newly refilled water bottles. And the juice I bought for Dudley. "Care to take a ride on your way up? I doubt two children would enjoy this heat and climbing that dreadful hill with such a huge load on their back. You're a strong boy, Dudley, but let's save that energy for more games and not climbing, aye?"

Dudley took a breath to tell Fubster that he wasn't the one bearing the load of the backpack but I was faster and I stole his thunder by proclaiming loudly how we'd love to take a ride with the old Colonel. Under normal circumstances, I'd let Dudley blab out everything to his heart's desire to the detriment of my antagonists. However, I was under the tender mercies of said antagonist, Marge, and as such, it'd be far more detrimental to me that it would be for her. It was the same with the Dursleys as a whole, but I've worked too hard to crawl out of that potential nightmare. Have I the opportunity, skills or chance, I'd always work towards improving the situation to my liking. It isn't ideal but at least I have security and stability. And with those two factors, I am capable of making more accurate assessments of what the future may hold for me.

Once upon a time, I was both careless and carefree, with the world at my feet. Now... Now, however, I find myself learning from my past mistakes. I learn, I adapt, I survive. Colonel Fubster will arrive at Marge's home any second now to find her awake if slightly groggy, something I am certain he has seen often as a result of her over-indulgence with alcoholic substances. This time it will be a bit with the help of my Xanax supplies. Ripper is probably still snoring away somewhere upstairs. He'll probably wake up soon as well, feeling utterly relaxed. If anything, Marge will either blame it on the weather which, by the way, is scorching hot at the moment, or she'd blame it on the food or drinks she's had. The likelihood of her blaming me is just about the same as the likelihood of someone reincarnating with their memories intact. I doubt that happens often. I mean, if someone else had been in my predicament then there would've been information about it. Furthermore, not only have I reincarnated with my memories, but I've reincarnated in the past, possibly in an entirely different dimension than my own. I'm already trying to find information about such things but the library at Little Whinging is terribly unprepared for the kind of scientific books I am looking for, not to mention the three excursions I've had thus far had all been more or less unsuccessful. I'd wager the library at Greater Whinging is more informed than this one but what I really need to get my hands on is one of London's bigger libraries. The problem was that I was in the past. There wasn't any internet about, we've pretty much yet to enter the information age nice and proper and if it hadn't been for me doing my best to help raise Dudley and the chores Petunia's been having me do on occasion, I probably would've gone completely bonkers by now.

And look at me! Using words like bonkers! When did I get so British? I've gone native. If MJ could only see me now in all of my glorious non-Frenchness and with such nice British manners instilled in me by Aunt Petunia. She'd laugh at me so hard. I could almost hear her.

The Colonel's car stopping in front of Marge's home was what jerked me out of my thoughts and Dudley and I were out faster than you can say Hussein Bolt. As predicted, Marge was awake, eyes occasionally drooping in desperate need for more medication induced sleep and she twitched her girl'stache, making me want to comb it with a toothbrush or something because, as disgusting as it was, she had managed to rustle it in her Xanax nap (Xanap?) and it looked even more hideous. I spotted the Colonel looking at it as well. Dudley was already wolfing down whatever Marge had prepared at the table.

The Colonel's arrival was quite fortuitous for me because her attention was entirely focused on flirting with him and gaining his approval with everything she did and not on her suspicions as to why she was feeling so unnaturally sleepy.

Oh, and on another note, there was some guy in the dog pens that was currently changing their water. So she does have hired work. Hopefully, they also clean the kennels and not have me do it for her. That would be a terrible way to spend the mornings. Shoveling dog shit and all. Once was quite enough, thank you very much.

At least the food Marge had served us looked quite tasty. There were cucumber sandwiches, freshly squeezed orange juice, corned beef, sliced thinly to perfection and all kinds of yummy stuff that almost made my tummy rumble at the sight of them. Naturally, my predatory inclinations had me go for the corned beef and I quickly made Dudley and myself sandwiches, while placing a small amount of mustard on my own, because mustard made this sandwich even better. I cut a tomato in half, splitting one half for myself and one for Dudley with my butter knife (Petunia would frown at how sharp Marge kept her utensils. I'd frown too, but I don't think Marge notices these kinds of things). I peeled a few boiled eggs and piled them on Dudley's plate. I knew the stuff he liked, most of which were sweets, but Dudley also hated to leave his plate not cleaned out so I've quickly learned to stuff his plate with all the right stuff so that at least he wouldn't have too much place for dessert and other sweets. I don't really get the whole sugar rush craze children seemed to have. When I was around this age, the happiest you'd make me with food was with rotisserie chicken, for example. Sugar made me hyper in all the worst ways and then I'd come off the sugar high and feel like a sack of kittens that got hit by a Peterbilt truck at 60 miles per hour. Gruesome but I believe quite accurate. As a result, I never developed an addiction to coffee either. My generally ornery and nervous nature had me up at the earliest hours, no matter how late I'd go to bed the previous night. I couldn't and still can't stand cigar smoke either, too used to the fresh, clean air of home (from the days before I fell out with my family) and then I've sort of always been too sensitive to certain smells.

Corned beef is quite the delicacy both for myself and Dudley. Petunia rarely if ever allows us something so peasant on our dining table (her words) but she makes allowances for Dudley's whims every so often. Petunia certainly does better with vegetable meals than ones with meat. Her pork cutlets have always been slightly on the dry side, but I think it's because she doesn't take into account the room temperature as well as the temperature of the meat itself.

Marge is too busy making sparkly eyes and giggling like a school girl for the Colonel so I make myself another corned beef sandwich and grab another tomato. Dudley's complaining that he wants pineapple juice but Marge is too busy with Fubster to placate him. I resist the urge to roll my eyes and I get off my chair and head for the fridge. I am almost one hundred percent certain Marge's stocked on pineapple juice because it has been Dudley's favorite for as long as I have known him. And Dudley doesn't let anyone forget his favorites.

When I open the fridge door the sharply cool air from within bathes me with its cold and as soon as I am done using it the hot air starts snapping at my cheeks. With a frown, I tenderly touch one cheek with three fingers.

"Ef. Em. El." I grumble quietly and purse my lips. I have a sunburn.

I bring the juice to Dudley and my eyes immediately start inspecting his face and any exposed skin. He's a bit more pinkish than usual so I make a note to reapply the sunscreen once we are done with lunch. Either that or have him take a cool shower and then I'd rather him in yogurt (does Marge have yogurt? Must check.) and baking soda solution. This little recipe I learned from an old wise woman from a tiny Serbian village that one time I spent two months in the country after...after Ori died.

"Wha-?" Dudley brought me out of my musings, with his mouth pretty much stuffed.

Oh. Right. I was staring at him.

"Sunburn," I tell him simply, pointing at my cheeks.

He chewed a bit more, swallowed and then poked his own cheeks.

"Oh. Ok."

And that was that.

The lunch took more than three hours, with the Colonel and Aunt Marge talking almost non-stop about the political situation, more or less boring Dudley to hell and back. In the meantime I was trying to figure out what to do and if it was possible to make our own yogurt from fresh milk from the local livestock. That would be beyond awesome! Not only would this show Dudley something he had never seen before, but it would also make him appreciate all the things we get from the honest, hard work of the local farmers.

It also brought back some memories to the front of my mind. Memories of a time where I had deliberately sought out anything as a means of finding a new purpose for my life. I had just walked out with the clothes on my back and taken off to directions unknown. I just couldn't stay there. I was unable to look anyone in the eyes, not after everything that had happened. There had been a phone call from my mother, who, instead of offering me the emotional support I've desperately needed my entire life, kept nagging and reprimanding me. I don't remember what she had said. I remember cutting the call and just walking out. I remember my heart throbbing in my throat and my ears buzzing. I remember a numbness within, an emptiness.

I just walked and walked, and let myself be taken away by currents unknown. I slept in dingy hostels and earned a living on the road by cooking, cleaning, doing simple repairs, that kind of thing. I had cut my hair with a pair of scissors I found in one of the hostels and had a raggedy, unevenly styled sloppy pixie. By the time I had dragged myself to the Balkans, I had already learned how to repair more than just small appliances and could hold simple conversations in German, Russian, Polish and Greek, on top of the courses I had taken in Spanish, Korean and Mandarin years prior.

It was late spring and the weather switched from sunny to stormy in the span of minutes on a daily basis. I'd been on the road since late November and it had been mid-April when I stumbled into this little no-name village in the middle of nowhere, Serbia. I spent two and a half months in what was basically the most rural part of the country under the care of this old little lady who had the fortitude of an ox, the stubbornness of a mule and there was this timelessness to her that I could only feel within the thickly forested hills and mountains of the Balkans. In that time I learned how to milk cows, kill and gut chickens, hunt foxes, trap white-breasted martens, the like. I was by no means an expert or intermediate at it, but I knew how to do it. The little old lady wasn't nice by any means. She tended to talk a lot about the communist regime in days gone by and her favorite pass time was cussing me out in what was Wallachian, according to some of the other old folk that lived there.

I am a city girl and always will be a city girl at heart. The bugs and the smell of manure were just some of the things that made me cringe when talking about the country-side. But back then... back then I felt as if I needed this. And maybe I really did need this. To force my body and my mind into some kind of regime, some kind of schedule that provided me a goal to work towards. Some days the goal was to get to a certain place. Get to that bus stop. Get to that city. Make it to the hostel before sundown. Step by step. Day by day. Brick by brick. I rebuilt myself.

Clean the chicken coop. Water the garden. Sweep the pathways. Wash the windows. Shovel the manure from the cowshed. Make it through another sunrise.

I don't think about those months in Serbia often, if ever. Nor about the little lady. They had served their purpose and I had moved on. I got to Varna, Bulgaria and stayed there for the summer tourist season. I earned enough money and a deep bronze tan and got myself on a bus to Istanbul from where I took a flight to the USA, ready to face the world again.

And then... Ben died on a mission. And Tifa was all alone, 6 months pregnant.


	9. Life Finds a way pt4

Several people shaped me into the woman (child) I am today. One of them was Tifa Mitchels, a woman who served in the army and spent years of her life in the French Foreign Legion. She is tall, broad-shouldered, muscles made of steel, somewhat wiry and sinewy looking, but one hundred percent intense, disciplined and a hardcore badass from top to bottom. Her hair allegedly had gone from dark sandy blonde to white by the time she hit 20 years old.

I found her red-eyed, with tear-streaked cheeks, a bona fide mess, with a very pregnant belly and the house shot to ruins. Literally. Did I mention she was a gun maniac? She was a gun maniac. And a good shot. Bloody good shot. I walked into what used to be a perfectly good family house that now smelled intensely of gunpowder. There were bullets, glass and thrown weapons all over the place where they had been ripped out of their displays and thrown about. The television had obviously received the blunt end of a Winchester (hint: the shotgun was sticking out of it). The second and third floors were spared the rampage. Apparently, Tifa had been like this for two weeks.

My first order of business when I took stock of her situation was to slap her across the face. The second was to hug her and tell her all the sweet nothings I had been told. It was going to be ok. I am here. I will help you. You can get through this. Had these words helped me? I don't honestly think so, but, just like with me, it had been the effort that reached Tifa, and less the contents of the words.

We spent the next three months fixing the first floor. By the time Tifa was ready to pop out little Annabelle, everything was ready. The shadow was still in her eyes but now there was also light. Ben was still here. In away. In Annie. Tifa was going to be a good mother. She was going to be the best fucking mother ever. The cussing, swearing, sharpshooting, ass-kicking, slayer of men, career military brat, Tifa Mitchels.

She made me Annie's Godmama.

Not Godmother. Godmama.

"Too fucking official. Gotta be Godmama. GM for short. Kid's gotta hafta be able ta pruhnounce it'n'all."

Annie pronounced it alright. I was her Jimmy and damn proud of it.

And then MJ shows up with the whole bloody crew and broke my nose in her fury. Then hugged me.

I may have forgotten to tell them where I was going. Or that I would be going anywhere in the first place. Or that I have resurfaced. Or... yeah. I've been a missing person for a little over a year and they've been looking for me all over Europe. Interpol was involved. And my paternal grandfather's resources (he used to be in some sort of secret service or something back in the day, but I never really managed to dig any deeper. Dad always used to say I took after him with my brains). What can I say to all of this?

Oopsie? I'll settle for that.

Colonel Fubster's house is a museum of better days where life still had a meaning to him. Every single wall was covered in pictures, some black and white, some in color. He used to be an average Joe back in the day, but an average Joe who was hardworking, was in the military and had a beautiful wife whose plum cheeks, rounded and kind face and twinkling eyes illuminated any and all photos she was in. And she was almost in all of them. The late Mrs. Fubster was a nurse, I think. A volunteer who has been all over the world with her husband. She was a person that I immediately knew I'd never ever be as good, kind or as giving as she. I felt... humbled, for a lack of a better word. To have the sheer energy, willpower, and inhuman resolution to do so much in so little time... Sometimes getting up in the morning was a chore for me. Taking out the trash. Hoping that things will get better. Not for this lady, though.

I felt ashamed and a little bit in awe. Every wall told a story and all of them culminated in a tragic allegory of death. The Fubsters had two daughters. Had. Past tense. Just as the pictures with Mrs. Fubster stop, so do the ones with their children. The last one shows one child holding a letter with a green H on it, the other, the older child was hugging their family pet, which was a big fluffy orange tabby. Upon further inspection, I notice a calendar on the wall behind them. With a bit of effort and squinting, I see the date and the year. It's March 3rd, 1980.

Colonel Fubster was about ten to fifteen years older than his wife I think. Even so, I think he must have been an exemplary husband and dad. I grit my teeth and swallow dryly. The memory of THAT day is so clear in front of my eyes that I can practically smell the sharp scent of antiseptics around me and hear the beeping of all the machines that were monitoring my health.

 _"MJ? Where- where is...Ori? Where is my baby?"_

 _"He is gone."_

 _Ori is gone. And I will never hold him in my arms._

NO!

I take a deep breath and slowly release it, focusing back on the war stories the colonel is occupying Dudley with. The boy has stars in his eyes. I focus on that. The blue eyes of the child in front of me. A happy, carefree child hanging on to every word coming out of this old soldier's mouth.

I don't have tears in my eyes. I've shed all the tears in the world to the point where I've become numb to the grief that grips me every single day. It never lets go. I can't let go of it, either, because that means letting go of what was supposed to be the Light of Lights in my life. My son. But I have learned- I am still learning to deal with it. It will be a life-long process. The grieving. The living. Moving on.

Starting anew.

I may, or may not have cheated on the last one. I think my therapist might reprimand me for it, had she the chance.

Fubster is a gentle, loving man. You can see the kindness in his eyes. You can see the happiness lighting up when we talked with him and when Dudley would ask him questions about the things he has done. It brings out something in him that rarely sees the light these days. His fatherly instincts. He feels... he feels like me in that way. I've made children my focal point since I found myself returning to the real world after my more or less year-long sabbatical away from everything. I often went out of my way to make children happy, to care for them the way they needed. The way I thought they needed. I babysat my friends' kids, I took them on vacations with other children. Psychologically, I understood that they weren't my children. But when I was with them, for a very short while, I would feel as if Ori hadn't died. As if I was an actual mom and... and it helped. I learned early to let them go. I have to let them go. That's what I told myself over and over. They were someone else's babies. Their mommies and daddies would hurt like I hurt if I took them away. That stopped my more manic urges. To take them away. To make them my own. I would always push away thoughts of whether my friends could see that struggle within me. If I pretended they had no idea, it was easier for me. If I pretended that everything was okay, I'd have days where I was okay and those days had slowly started to outnumber the bad days.

The truth is... the truth is that I lost more than just my son on that horrid day. I was in a medically induced coma for four days. I had woken up to the sounds of multiple machines beeping, whirring and what not. To the sounds of someone shuffling on a chair to the right of me. I was left with scars that encompassed my abdomen from top to bottom, almost to the very tip of my breastbone. I had lost three and a half meters of my small intestines, a third of my liver, my spleen, parts of my leg bones were used to fix other broken parts. I had metal plates and what not holding my pelvis together. I had lost superficial feeling in my right leg and I didn't feel my pinky finger and ring finger on my left hand as well. There were patches of sensitivity and patches of non-sensitive areas on my whole torso between the pelvis and breast bone from where the life-saving operation had taken place. It wasn't any of those things that bothered me. My womb had been so mutilated by the whole ordeal that I was told having another child would be impossible. And even if I did get pregnant, I'd be unable to carry it full term.

Somehow hearing those words out of the doctor's mouth made me feel something I never thought I would have to deal with. When you are at that age, barely an adult and feeling as if the world is in your hands, just waiting for you to do whatever you want with it, there are these comforting thoughts at the back of your mind that you don't really care to listen to. Not until it is too late. There is time to start a family. There is time for you to raise children. Now is the time to have fun, to make something of yourself. And just like that, all those thoughts were gone. How do you leave a meaningful legacy of yourself when you couldn't have children? How do you move on when everything you ever wanted was taken away from you?

 _...Who would want a scar-covered freak that cannot even bear a single child?_

When you hit rock bottom the only place you can go from there is up. It started with little things. It started with the support of friends. Bad days became less, days, where I was feeling okay, became more. There weren't any good days. Not because they didn't happen, but because I was too afraid to acknowledge that happiness like that was achievable for me. I learned how to smile even when I wasn't feeling capable of it. Sometimes that smile reached my eyes. Sometimes it was the effort I put into it that made me feel as if I was making some kind of progress.

I felt like I was two different people – the girl who suffered through all of this and the apathetic person standing on the side, looking over all the things that were happening. It helped me deal with the trauma. The mental one. My therapist also helped. Plastic surgeons helped with the physical scars where they could. Did you know they reconstructed my belly button? That has to count for something, right?

Vegas happened somewhere along the way. I've always been wary of any form of chance games but we were all going together – Tifa, MJ, and I. And we wanted to do something different. MJ, as always, had set her sights on the poker tables. I've played that game once or twice but it isn't my thing. Cards, in general, aren't my thing even though I am usually very invested in any and all forms of strategy games. Now, chess is more my thing, but I digress. Long story short, is that I won nearly four million dollars. And just like that my life was upside down again. I left Tifa's place and got my own, somewhere in West Virginia, where all I could see was a sea of green, the air was fresh and crisp and the plan at that moment was to get some chickens going. I ended up with three cows and a couple of goats, two dogs, rescues, a whole bunch of chickens and two or three farmhands depending on the seasons. It wasn't much, and I hardly even spent half a million after finishing the renovation of the house and surrounding lands. I distinctly remember thinking about getting llamas before... well, before I got here.

I didn't have a job but I remember preparing myself to go to a university. I had the funds for it, so my aim was along the lines of Ivy League and I think MIT was up there among my choices as well. I was taking my time. I knew I needed time to settle my head before I did anything. Hence the whole therapist thing I had going on, trying to prepare myself to enter proper society once more.

I learned that trauma is more than skin deep. I had severe anxiety issues that I fumbled through sheer force of denial. I didn't really communicate with anyone save for my friends and their children, and occasionally with my farmhands as well. I didn't get out of my house much but once therapy was a thing, I started doing hikes through the wilderness surrounding me. It helped me clear my head. Physical activity was recommended so Tifa helped by signing me up for some kick boxing courses. I'd be in a limited, somewhat controlled contact with people within the Gym which would eventually help me open up to strangers once more. Or something. Mostly I was beating the shit out of the punching bag for the first three months of it and I think I realized that I may have scared the others in the gym with my aggressiveness. I omitted that part from my weekly therapy sessions but somehow my therapist still knew!

Therapy helped me put things into a proper perspective. My therapist wasn't too happy with my methods of disassociating myself from my life and making decisions based of that apathetic bystander, but it was what helped me put one foot in front of the other. There was progress but I don't think it was enough by the time I ended up here. In the years I've spent here I learned to appreciate what I've gained, at least a little bit. I still don't know how to feel about the changes though. I switched a life with a life. I am what I am today because of what I have lived through. Being here, with nothing but my memories, both bad and good, feels as if every hardship I've been through is invalidated. And that is something that I cannot stand.

"Can you cook, girl?"

"Yes, Aunt Marge."

She narrows her eyes at me, at which I immediately start clarifying.

"I can use the stove, both hotplates and oven. An electric stove and not a gas one. I don't think Aunt Petunia would be comfortable with a gas stove in the house at all. I can make simple soups, sandwiches, a few breakfast recipes. Aunt Petunia had gotten to teaching me how to make cake."

" And tea?"

"Aunt Petunia has not deemed me a lost cause yet." I said and then pursed my lips lest I started grinning like an idiot. I

Aunt Marge has been asking me weird questions all morning. I am starting to feel more than just mildly uncomfortable because I am having strange Nanny McPhee vibes from the whole situation. Not fun.

"How are you with numbers, girl?"

Im an aspiring astrophysicist / paleonthologist. What do you think?

"I can do division and multiplication, addition and substraction. They are fun." I add as well, and look at the floor, feeling too uncomfortable by her gaze. I try to think of things kids would say.

"Can you read?"

"Yes, Aunt Marge."

The large woman shifts to the side and grabs for the nearest magazine and shoves it into my chest. I grunt quietly from the force she used but otherwise did not react in anyway. Im not suicidal. At the moment at least.

"Read!"

I obey and immediately open to a random page and begin droning on about the life and times of Yugo, English Bulldog Extraordinaire. After about a paragraph or so, the walrus woman seemed satisfied and pulled the magazine from my grasp.

"At least my sister-in-law did something right. Now to see if we can put you to good use."

Dudley was somewhere with Fubster doing boy things I wasn't allowed to do. On the other hand I am stuck with an oddly ambitious-looking Aunt Marge who, by the looks of it, has come to the conclusion that I was the key to Fubster's heart, given that the old man has taken a shine to me. I look nothing like his daughters but I guess it's because I am a little girl and that's enough of a reminder.

Aunt Marge didn't have me clean the kennels. But cleaning up dust from the house was equally boring even if it was a far less dirty job than the first one. She had me help with preparing lunch. My mind was constantly on the little bottle with Xanax pills and not once during these gruelling eight hours did I not reflect upon how my longest lasting "romance" was the love-hate relationship I had with the medication. Cleaning around the house also gave me plenty of small little spaces which I could utilize for hiding things that neither Marge nor her hell hound Ripper could get to.

Speaking of Ripper he is constantly growling at me. He may or may not be smarter than Marge. He probably smells the Xanax on me or something. I feel uneasy with that dog glaring at me. English Bulldogs are fiercely loyal and stubborn. It's not like I didn't have to read about it, given that almost 90 percent of all reading materials in the house are about said dog breed.

I find it sad that this dog became such an angry creature. This kind of hatred towards anything that isn't his mistress the walrus was unnatural and only born by human means. I've seen my fair share of dogs in my past life. My family had never been keen on keeping any kind of creatures at home and that reflected upon my behavior in my early years. I remember when I was around 7 or 8 the first time around that I had this rivalry with a neighbour's cat, Mister Fluffball or something. I didn't quite remember his name because I was more keen on calling him Subject 5. I still have his skull somewhere in my room all the way in Paris in my parent's house. If they haven't burned down my things that is.

Oh. I didn't kill him. He probably ate a rat or a mouse that had been poisoned. There are tons of rats in Paris by the way. People keep the streets nice and clean but once in a while, especially at night, you can see the little buggers roam about, looking for food or shelter. Rats are amazing creatures in this way – they have an amazing penchant for surviving in almost any conditions. Now, Subject 5 was a large specimen of the Chinchilla Persian variety, his fur a beautiful soft silver, almost black at the very roots. When I found him dead I remember mourning the loss of his luxurious fur. Then I dragged his corpse to the nearest ant mound and buried him there. Few monts later I dug out a perfectly clean and intact skeleton.

I got off-track again, didn't I? My point was that animals only become as cruel as people make them. Same thing applies to people, oddly enough. Cruelty begets cruelty. Violence begets violence. It's a vicious cycle that one. I've learned a lot about people from observing animals. I've learned to be weary of households where there are no pets without any good reason. Such people tended to be cruel, colder, with a superiority complex a mile wide. The Dursleys do not have an animal at home and, knowing Pet and Vernie, it'll take something drastic to change their views regarding having pets. I took every opportunity to have Dudley interact with animals whenever we could, provided they were household pets and not some random strays. That would just be exposing Dudley to a needless risk.

I always worry about how much of an impact my efforts have on Dudley. Are they enough? Are they too much? Am I overstepping any boundary I do not know of? Doubt haunts me on the regular. But then I look at people like Marge and I know I've made the right choice. There is more to life than just material possessions and one's position in society.

Fubster and Dudley return just in time for lunch. Dudley has gotten another sunburn but his happy little face is all smiles and dimples and even though they didn't catch anything on their little fishing excursion, it was obvious to everybody that the kid has had lots and lots of fun.

It feels as if Aunt Marge has become slightly more lenient toward me, but I was just 99 percent sure this may be some sort of trick or test of hers, so I did not get my guard down around her. I did what she asked of me without word or complaint. I took her constant jabs about the quality of my parentage and her constant spiels about Petunia's failures concerning myself and Dudley. Marge was truly a vile woman in my opinion, but a woman none the less. She had some good in her, though far more bad. I blame Marge and Vernon's father on their particular brand of vileness. There were ways I could appeal to Marge and most involved ingratiating her to Fubster. That alone was a mission impossible but there was no reason to let Aunt Marge know that. So long as she saw use in me, I was safe from whatever abuse she'd throw my way.

The moment she realizes using me would be futile for her pursuit of the Colonel's affections, I was certain I'd be paying dearly for it. So long as I was home in Little Whinging before that fact came to be, I'd be safe.

Dudley was oblivious to it all. He spent half an hour talking to his mother on the phone before bed. All done under Marge's gaze, who was straining her ears to pick up every little word Petunia said for whatever ammunition she could get against her sister-in-law. Marge did not talk to Petunia. Once Dudley was done she rudely cut the call and set Dudley to bed. I was downstairs for the entire event, quietly straining my own ears to eavesdrop as best as I could. I could not catch Auntie's side of the conversation but I put two and two together from Dudley's words.

Marge and Petunia were not fans of each other. Not at all. In fact, Marge was firmly against their marriage in the first place. From the little bits and pieces I could get from the walrus lady's grumblings, she didn't like Petunia because _no normal woman cut ties with their own family for seemingly no reason, even if their little sister turned into a moneygrabbing whore._ Said whore was my mother, mind you. Even if I had no actual feelings toward my current biological mother, that did not mean it felt nice to listen to anyone defacing her memory like that. One does not talk ill of the dead. It's... it's wrong!

Marge is a woman of strict, almost ascetic discipline when it concerned anything and anyone but herself. She was a very old-fashioned, traditional type of person. She also liked to make her own conclusions and opinions about people and said conclusions and opinions were valued above everything including law and fact. On that note her warming up to me was nothing else but the direct result of her use of me in whatever capacity it was needed.

I have a new schedule as of the fourth day of our stay here. I am to do readings and mathematical problems. She sets out some very simple math problems for me to solve and then has me read whatever random thing she picks up. Her sudden academic interest in me is alarming. I mentioned Nanny McPhee earlier, did I not? Well in the story, the maidservant Evangeline gets taken by aunt Lady Adelaide Stitch to be made into a proper lady or something. I am by no means anything else but a well-thought out investment to Aunt Marge. I do not know her intentions or her character well enough to find the right reason for these plans of hers. Whatever she wants of me is something I cannot afford to give. If I end up living here for whatever twisted reason, it will be years of misery.

I am too quiet and even Dudley notes my distress. That afternoon I put the Xanax to good use again and I put all of my attention on my baby , in all actuality, Dudders is a month or so older than me. However, in mind, I am at least 30 or so years old. Playing with him eases my mind and reminds me of better, more carefree days- the hot lazy summers in the countryside with my many, many boy cousins. Memories of them and their cheeky, boyish grins and bright sparkling eyes fill my heart and lifts the worry from my soul. That day I teach Dudley how to make a whistle out of leaves the same way my paternal grandfather once did. I miss him, but I felt that I honored my memory of him by passing down this skill. Would that I could, I'd teach Dudley everything I know.


	10. Life Finds a way pt5 Final

**_A/N:_** _This chapter took months of preparation, planning, rewriting, redoing, tweaking and whatnot. I would like to thank the Chamber of Secrets Discord community for their help in making this chapter. Without their continuous support, I don't think I would've had the will to construct this as quickly as I did. This took 17 hours over 3 days to put together. Most of this was scattered in my notebooks, on pieces of paper, some of it on my tablet, etc. In all cases I hope you enjoy, I really poured my heart and soul into this one!_

 ** _Chapter 10_**

Aunt Marge's cast iron pan weighs almost as much as I do. I'd love to have one of those back in Privet Drive. Cast iron pots and pans are something else when it comes to cooking. Specifics about their maintenance aside, they are superior with retaining heat longer and safer to use than Teflon. As admirable as all of these facts are, none of them are helping me right now.

I am frying eggs in the combined power of butter, bacon grease and fresh, coarsely ground black pepper. There were sausages I had seared beforehand as well, in a deep dish and covered so that they'd retain their heat. I was yet to prepare the beans and cut vegetables and fruit but, give or take a few more minutes, I'd get to that as well. Homegrown cucumbers, tomatoes, shallot and green peppers for a light veggie infested side dish.

Two pineapples were sitting ominously on the table, waiting for me to turn them into juice. Somehow. Eventually. I found a big ass knife to cut the pineapples, which, by the way, are pretty tough in general. This knife went through like a hot poker through butter. Now, I want to stress upon the fact that Aunt Marge has a lot of knives, a shocking number of knives that she has probably collected more or less over the years. What I had in my hands was an eight inches chef's knife, stainless steel and this is probably the sharpest thing I have ever had in my clutches. That is saying something, ok? I used to pilfer scalpel blades from every time I had to visit a hospital back in the Before. I had an emergency scalpel collection that I am fairly certain got to about eighty in number. Scalpels are sharp. They are meant to be extremely sharp. Kitchen knives should not be this sharp. From what I remember, a blade's edge should not be so thin as it would become brittle. Steel composition was also extremely important. The knife was huge in my hands but the ting it made was just about right, the weight, while heavy, was not unwieldy, as it was perfectly distributed, balanced. There was also a brand name on the blade as well as the handle and the sheath that I had set to the side of the cutting board. This thing in my hands would cost a bit over 230 pounds if I went by estimates from modern days of Before. This knife cost more than the combined cutlery of the Dursley family. I have drooled over such knives Before. This knife had also never been used before, placed on a rack with a few other such knives who had not seen use before, lying forgotten in kitchen shelves that had also seen very little use.

I want this knife.

By the time breakfast was ready, Aunt Marge showed up once more, done with whatever errand she had been doing (vet check up on a pregnant bitch, I think) and took stock of my work. I left the Kitchen counters in pristine condition. If anyone had a disposition as nasty as Aunt Marge's then it was a given that said person would gas about the smallest of details, just for the sake of gassing. I have absolutely no desire to go back to the kennels to shove dog shit and if it is within my power to prevent such a thing from happening again, then, by all means, I will.

It was nice and quiet up until Dudley woke up and then there was energetic thumping down the stairs and happy shouts at the sight of his favorite foods for breakfast.

As per usual, I prepared a dish for him, with ample amounts of protein and fiber on it. Protein suppresses the sugar cravings or something like that if I remember correctly. It is a full-time job trying to keep Dudley's mighty appetite at bay. At the moment my main priority was to gain some semblance of control over his calorie intake. He was a growing boy, after all. It meant that, combined with all of his boyish activities, he had to take just the right, positive amount of calories so that he'd have enough to grow into his weight while not stunting any of his physiological needs. And considering Dudley's penchant for sneaking snacks despite my best efforts, it is understandable why I view this as a full-time job.

Aunt Marge made her plate and sat down to eat on Dudley's other side.

The stache was combed. Jesus!

"I made the pineapple juice from fresh Pineapples, Dee. It's sour so don't gulp it down all at once." I warned him quickly. After the first few mishaps, he has started to listen to me whenever I give food advice. Dudley loves sour food almost as much as he loves sweets. Hence his undying love for pineapples. As we were having breakfast, Aunt Marge was fussing with Ripper, who seemed to have worked up quite the mood this morning. He was grumbling and growling, his bloodshot eyes, shining with animalistic, malicious hatred towards Dudley and I. This wasn't jealousy. At least, I think it wasn't just jealousy alone that drove this pooch's aggression. Animals, such as they are, know when something isn't right. In short, Ripper was very well aware I was doing something to his Mistress and himself and he was very against such actions. The darkness in his eyes sent chills down my spine.

Did you know English Bulldogs drool a lot? The reason Aunt Marge constantly carries this handbag of hers is picking after Ripper, wiping after him, and, of course, that healthy sip of quality Dutch courage every few hours. And when I say Dutch Courage, I am obviously talking about the good stuff. I can tell where Uncle Vernon got his couple of drops in his tea every afternoon from.

Marge is a heavy set woman and I've commented on that often enough. The type you always see waddling down the street, huffing and puffing just from the effort of moving from point A to point B. Marge has one speed. Let me expound on that. Marge has one speed except for when she doesn't. When Aunt Marge is angry, she gains a second speed – that of a charging disabled bull; and then the huffing and puffing intensifies, there is frothing and spit flying everywhere. The huffing and puffing intensifies to a specific level of growling, roaring and panting. Her face switches colors much like Uncle Vernon's purple rainbow palette and beads of sweat run down her face, her teeth bared -some white, some gray and quite a few coated in gold. Her brows would scrunch up, her snarling thin upper lip would make her mustache tremble and quiver.

Aunt Marge, when angered, does not scream or shout. Or so she believes. She likes to pretend that her voice is within acceptable decibel range, much like people in need of hearing aids.

All in all, Aunt Marge maintains this boss enrage mode for about five minutes, after which her undiagnosed, untreated, slowly progressing chronic heart condition throws a fit she can't ignore and she sits down, bends forward, leaning on her hands for support, clutching her knees. The color of her face goes through a swift devolution process after which it does not resume a healthy hue. It is always some shade of flushed, either from the alcohol she imbibes on the regular, or, which is far more likely, from the sheer effort to continue existing.

For the amount of time Dudley and I have been here, Aunt Marge has entered Boss Enrage Mode for a total of seven times, which is about 34.5 minutes total. Or, on average, as I have done the math, a little under five minutes per enrage.

So, how do I put this information to good use?

Marge's home has two floors, an attic, and a basement. The staircase is the only way up and the only way down. I've no business on the second floor and, therefore, I have maintained the minimum amount of excursions required to get a decent idea of the layout. There are no ways to escape through the windows there, nothing available to climb down. I'd have to jump out of the window and hope I don't break both my ankles upon impact. On the side of the kennels, the roof is sloped and the cover consists of these superheated waffled metal sheets. If I don't cook myself upon touch down then I'd likely cut myself open as I slide down.

Recommendations? Don't go on the second floor unless absolutely necessary. The staircase at its main width just about handles Marge's diameter. I can't jump over her, I can't slip under her and, even if I could, I wouldn't. Death would be preferable, I can assure you. I am, however, capable of slipping through the holes in the stair railings since it's basically carved wooden columns. So, if needed, I could slip through but it's only feasible in three places due to all the clutter and shelving everywhere. I'd probably break the glass and cut myself. I haven't had any access to the basement yet but I've taken stock of the small windows on the outside and I don't feel encouraged to try and use them anytime soon.

I've pilfered a map that I swiped from the Colonel's car. It's one of those road maps that everyone had in their cars before the GPS era. Hopefully, my time spent gaming would help me decipher these archaic navigation tools. I mean, it has to be the same thing, right? Like GPS. Except no lady is telling me to turn left in fifteen meters. My smartphone got me across Europe all on its own back in the day. I mean, back in the day, way back when the day was some 30 something years in the future. And even if there was no reception, I still had the option of asking fellow-traveling strangers for direction.

Life is different in the eighties. The people are different. The food is different. The culture is different. You don't see it in Little Whinging because it's a timeless place stuck in the illusion of a little suburban utopia. Even out here, in the middle of nowhere, it is hard to properly get a feel of what exactly is different. But I can feel it in the little things. The way people talk, the way they react to things.

Despite my best efforts, I still find myself feeling isolated, lonely. No matter how hard I try, I always find myself an outsider to this strange time that is the eighties. It feels as if my ideas, my very thoughts are stuck in the mindset of someone who still lives more or less in 2019.

Most of the time I keep to myself but it is quite a strain for me, as I used to be very outgoing and talkative, depression and all taken into consideration. As a result, I've found myself using Petunia of all people as a measuring stick for my own behavior. If Petunia reacts in a certain way to something, I'd try to emulate that reaction. Because I am an emotional and very impulsive person, I think it is quite obvious why all of this is so stressful for me. What works in my favor, however, is that emulating adult behavior is something that all children do and thus, even if my performance rounds down to just pulling away from certain situations, it would have to be enough, I hope, to get anyone off my back. It is very tiresome, though.

Sometimes I wish I could just let go and resume the natural state of chaos and mayhem that used to dominate my earlier years. It had been so easy back then. No amount of rules, order, and traditions could curb my own desires and ambitions. There were no social norms I wasn't willing to break in order to pursue what I thought was my own happiness. And look at me now. Slowly but surely it was all driving me insane, gnawing at my sense of self like a metaphorical plague spreading from the very tips of my fingers to the marrow-deep in my bones. It was a prickly irritableness that steadily grew within the confines of my sternum, like a sound an animal would make when agitated, except that I was no animal and there was no sound to be made, and the agitation was stirring like a nest of wasps right at my very center.

At some point, that nest will reach critical mass and then…

I measure my imminent breakdown with just how much of an urge I have to comb Marge's girlstache with a toothbrush. Right now I am at a seven English Bulldog puppers out of a Ripper.

I inhale deeply and breathe out slowly, trying to purge myself of these feelings and build-up of stress. Perhaps in a few more years, things wouldn't be so bad. My hope, however, is slowly dwindling. My hope that this is all some coma-induced nightmarish dream. My hope that I will wake up one day in my bed, in my home in West Virginia and promptly forget that all of this ever happened, as dreams are often wont to do.

But then I find myself looking at Dudley's puffy, dimpled face and my chest tightens.

I sleep this night with a growling dog scratching and pawing at my door.

Morning finds Dudley and I left to our own devices. Sometime during the night, the pregnant English Bulldog bitch had finally gone into labor. English Bulldogs are an artificially created breed. Some might even argue that they are so warped from what is natural that they can't give birth to their pups naturally. Around four in the morning, Marge rushed the bitch to the vet clinic some 30 km away. She also forgot Ripper. I was unable to get a wink of sleep after the whole panicked rush before the sun was even up. I waited patiently for Ripper to move onto another part of the house where I locked him for our own safety.

Dudley was still sleeping soundly and I felt that I had more time before I had to start working on breakfast. I made my way through the garden and into the kennels where a young, lanky looking man was sweeping the floor energetically. The sun was out already, blaring its radiant summer rays into my face, causing me to scowl with my magnificent bushy black caterpillar brows and to squint my eyes.

"Good morning, love. Ain't it a bit early to be up?" he greeted me, without looking up from his work.

"It's six-thirty," I told him as a matter of factly. It was perfectly late to be up and about if the sun was up and about. By my own standards at the very least. Dudley can sleep as much as he likes. This is his last school-free summer. I'll let him enjoy it.

"So, you like getting up early? The Lady of the House rarely shows up before ten."

"She went to the vet with the pregnant dog early this morning."

"Heard about that. Doggy's a bit early, too. Too early, in fact."

Now, if I was a cruel person, this would've been a perfect moment to ask this lanky fellow about the birds and the bees. That would keep me nice and amused for a while, watching him squirm in his own social discomfort like a slimy slug covered in salt by yours truly. But, bless my bored soul, I resisted the urge and instead opted to gain an ally in this traitorous House of English Bulldogs.

"Will the puppies be alright?" I asked, genuinely concerned for those little furry, big-headed angels.

"I reckon they will, love. Helen's a real magician when it comes to labor. She's our vet. Saved my aunt's favorite cow and the calf too!"

"I locked Ripper in Aunt Marge's bedroom. He's been growling at me the whole night. I couldn't sleep."

This time he turned to look at me, giving me a once-over, as if searching for any injuries I might've gotten. He blinked owlishly and then scowled slightly, as if deep in thought.

"He doesn't like you very much, now does he, love?" No shit, Sherlock. "Ripper doesn't like anyone, really. Except for his Mistress. He gets very jealous, that Ripper."

"So what do we do about him? He's been growling at my cousin Dudley, too."

"Well, we better not let him out then."

"What if Aunt Marge gets angry?"

"Then she will be angry at me. Ok, love? You and your cousin, Dudley, was it? The two of you go out and play. It ain't right to have two munchkins staying in the house when there's such a nice, sunny day ahead of you. It's summer, go play outside. I will handle the rest, alright, love?"

I gave him a silly little smile and ran off to wake up my cousin. Breakfast was swift and hearty. Sandwiches were made with even greater swiftness. We were out of there before nine o'clock had even rolled around and, with a blanket swiped from one of the cabinets, we were ready to enjoy a nice sunny picnic, completely Ripper and Marge free.

Marge's village hasn't any eco-paths or whatever they call them. Mostly there are hills, a bunch of dirt roads, some goat paths and some forested areas. There is nothing to do than walk about and taking in the scenery. It was quiet and peaceful with the occasional sheep cutting through the quiet. Being the boy that he was, Dudley jumped from any small flat rock on the ground to the other, ran back and forth with his boundless little boy energy that only little boys were capable of and generally put a smile on my face. The trees took the brunt of the sun's scorching heat, with a pleasant, sweetly scented, cool floral breeze filling our lungs and caressing our skins.

Dudley looks happy. Most of the time I see a lot of his mother and father in him. His smile is all Petunia, what with his dimples. He shakes his head like Uncle Vernon when he laughs and he scratches his head when deep in thought, again just like Uncle. Sometimes, however, I see things I try not to see. I imagine what Ori would've been like. I imagine Ori in Dudley's place and that kills me a little bit inside. I have to suppress it, shove it down into the deepest recesses of my mind and lock it up.

Dudley is not my son.

My son is dead.

And it is these truths that I have to repeat to myself every day, like a mantra. It hurts. Sometimes it hurts so much that I lie awake in my bed unable to get a wink of sleep, fighting my inner demons, stuck in a stalemate that I cannot seem to get out of even in this new life. It is nothing new. I've learned to live this way. How many years have passed like this? It doesn't matter, really. I digress.

It was an early afternoon that found us on our way back. Dudley has found himself a nice walking stick and has been posing with it like some kind of explorer every so often. It's adorable so I let him continue his little make-believe. Both he and I bore the caress of the sun on our cheeks and I am certain that we'd go home in Little Whinging with at least a little bit of tan.

All the food I had prepared has been eaten, as well as all the water. Our return trip was a lot lighter for me. My feet hurt a bit from all the walking mostly because my shoes weren't exactly designed for the rocky terrain of the paths we followed. We went through the village and got ice cream for Dudley which seemed to energize him even further as he ran up the dirt road towards Marge's house. I tried to follow him to the best of my ability but I lost sight of my cousin as he sprinted through the gate. I adjusted the straps of my backpack and-

" Aaaah! Harry! Help!"

I dropped everything at the sound of Dudley's cries. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. Any and all forms of exhaustion leaving my body as I rushed on what felt like the Wings of Fury.

I saw my baby boy in the jaws of that monster Ripper. He had pushed him on the ground, biting down on his left shoulder.

I saw red.

"Love, can you hear me? Come on, love, snap out of it."

Someone was lightly slapping my cheeks with ice-cold, wet hands. My heart was thundering in my ears and I felt numb and…. Dudley!

"Dudley! My ba- my cousin, is he ok!?"

"He'll be fine love- No! Don't look down. Look at me. Keep your eyes on me, love. Can you do that? I want you to stay awake, ok, love?"

"O-ok. I can do that."

There was blood everywhere. And the smell of charred flesh. The lanky fellow from before was kneeling in front of me. My glasses were somewhere and not on my face. I couldn't see clearly but- he took off his belt and wrapped it tightly around my left calf.

"Keep looking up love, I'm almost done. Just don't look down. And- and don't move!"

There was blood… everywhere. I looked to my right and saw the outline of my cousin, his back against the wall of the house, his whole body shivering, right hand clutching what appeared to be some sort of cloth on his left shoulder. There was blood there too. But not enough to…

"Alright, love, I'll go in the house to call the - Is that the Colonel's car? Thank God! J-just don't move and don't look down, love! I'll be right back with some help. I'm proud of ya, love. You're a really brave girl."

He rushed off. I realized I didn't even know his name. God. Everything smelled of blood and charred flesh. Blood was splattered on the walls like something had… exploded. Everything was blurry and it was starting to get difficult to keep my eyes open. The lanky man wanted me awake so I focused on that. I can do that. I can… I can stay awake for him. I looked back at Dudley. Even through the blurriness, I could see his wide-eyed stare and I followed it.

There.

A dark heap was lying on the ground, smoke rising from it. It almost looked like… was that… no. That- that can't be Ripper! I don't see any white… where is his head!?

I looked down.

Jesus fucking Christ! I could … was that bone!? M-my ankle! Oh God! Oh God! I could see the bone!

Tears leaked down my eyes and I finally felt myself shivering violently. I let out a strangled sob, my hands clutching still soft and warm fur.

I screamed bloody murder as I threw Ripper's mangled, charred head from my arms. I leaned to the side, my leg throbbing violently with pain at the swift movement as I expelled whatever contents I had in my stomach. Distantly, I became aware of shouting, of people approaching me as darkness took me in its merciful embrace.

I did this.

I am a monster.

I did this!

Monster.

Freak.

Monster...

I… I am a monster…

 _ **My monster...**_

* * *

Jon Warren had been under the employment of Marjorie Dursley for almost two years, exactly two years come September. Jon Warren, twenty-three years of age, was also a werewolf; he has been a werewolf for the last four years of his life and up until his employment in Ms. Dursley's kennels had had a lot of trouble finding any sort of permanent work. Those with lycanthropy rarely managed to keep down a job. It was, in a way, something that he considered as part of the affliction.

Jon Warren was a muggle. Used to be a muggle. That's what those strange folk dressed in weird billowing capes told him.

"Sorry about your mates, Mr. Warren. We will try to find the culprit to the best of our ability but for now sign here, here and here and please follow us to explain some things."

Said things included that now he has an official identification number somewhere in that secretive wonky ministry of theirs that pointed at him and said _Beware! Dangerous monster!_ That meant he had to find somewhere to hide himself one night a month during the full moon so that he doesn't hurt anyone. Mostly he ends up chasing rabbits, a few sheep here and there, frolic with some wolves. He tried barricading himself but the wolf part of him more or less tore into itself, which was not healthy. Not at all. So he rather risk the authorities than look like he spent all his free time brawling with bears.

Jon used to have a girlfriend. Her name was Sally. Sally thinks he is doing drugs and that's why she dumped him, which took Jon quite a while to get over. But Jon was a hardy lad. Hardier than before, in fact. It was weird though. It felt as if his whole life was turned upside down, now having to watch his back for those weird folk with the capes. Robes. Robes, they are called. Wizards and witches in robes. Aurors. The witch police. Funny folk. So uptight about keeping the secrets about themselves but have them answer a few simple questions and watch them dump you faster than a hot potato on the ground.

What happens to me now?

Where can I get help with this?

How do I keep others safe from me during the full moon?

Aurors, Jon had quickly realized, don't answer questions. They ask them. And they do as they are told by their boss. People like Jon - muggles and squibs, werewolves and the like, they were nobodies. So, with no answers and even more questions than before, Jon took his chances and started doing what he did best - getting on with life.

There are no such things as Werewolves Anonymous but Jon did try to look for some self-help groups of any kind that were at least a bit related. When that did not pan out, Jon headed north doing odd jobs on the way to make ends meet. The thing about small farming communities was that some of them had electric fences which, in turn, protected the owners as much as the sheep, cattle and the like from Jon's monthly midnight moonlit walks. Werewolves don't like electricity, don't like strong artificial smells such as perfumes, don't like overcooked meat. But werewolves, as Jon found out, have a great fondness for fellow canines. Despite their inherent hatred for humankind, werewolves found deep kinship with dogs, wolves, foxes and any other member of the canine family.

Thus, while fixing the old Colonel's roof one summer, Jon somehow managed to settle himself a job in Ms. Dursley's kennels. Ms. Dursley was a terrible, terrifying woman, but there were very few things that were capable of terrifying Jon at this point (one being that sonofabitch Greyback). The dogs listened to him with ease few others managed, mostly due to his inner wolf and the pay was good enough that he finally managed to buy himself a car of his own. An old jeep that despite its looks was still a reliable, hardy vehicle.

Jon was lanky because of his werewolf metabolism. If his pay allowed him to buy more meat, he'd go for it. But right now he was saving up for a caravan and his wolf could handle being peckish for a while longer. A caravan would make his excursions into deeper woods for his monthly needs easier. And safer for people. It's been four years and so far Jon hadn't a single human attack under his belt and he'd like to keep it that way.

So… the whole magic business. Well. Wizards and witches have their own secret government. A government that does shit for people like him. He was a muggle. A non-magical born from non-magical. Colonel Fubster was what was called a squib. A non-magical person born into a magical family. His wife had been a Healer in their magical hospital, St. Mungo's. He had two daughters, one of whom magical herself. They were all dead due to some secret war with some sort of Dark Lord. Jon didn't really ask for details but was at least grateful to the old man for the information he provided. Which, by the way, was a lot more than what the witch police had given him.

At least that Dark Lord was gone now, or so Fubster says. Defeated by a little girl.

Imagine Jon's surprise when the old man burst with excitement, talking about that same little girl as Ms. Dursley's niece or something. He got to see the girl himself today. An early riser, with the wildest black hair he had ever seen, barely tamed in a side-braid tied off with a thin red string, most likely pilfered from one of Ms. Dursley's cabinets. She had bushy black eyebrows and pale, slightly sun-kissed skin. What really struck him was the color of her eyes. They were unnaturally green and so intense!

"The color of the Killing Curse." Fubster had told him. Not that he knew what he meant, being a muggle and all, but he took the old man's words to heart, given that it was by its tender mercies that Fubster had lost his family. "They call her the Girl-Who-Lived. The wizards and witches. But she doesn't seem to know or understand any of it. Better this way, I think. Better than she does not suffer a constant reminder of what she has lost."

The old man's eyes had been glued to the photos of his own dead family. At the time Jon had merely shrugged. Other than having an intense stare, the girl didn't seem anything out of the ordinary. Well, up until that Ripper menace decided to attack Ms. Dursley's nephew in her absence. Werewolf superpowers or not, Jon was somehow not faster than that tiny, scrawny girl with wild hair and intense green eyes. She had barged into the dog with all her might, fast as a viper, just barely larger than the dog itself and had attempted to kick it aside. Jon couldn't decide who was fiercer - the angry dog or the little girl. Well, hell hath not seen fury, and neither had Ripper. It was as if something had snapped in the girl. Her teeth were bared in an almost animalistic snarl, her wild hair somehow having gone loose from the braid.

Ripper threw himself on the girl, catching her left ankle in its large maw. At this point, Jon had almost gotten to her. He thanked God, the Queen, his lucky stars and whatever else that was looking out for him that he hadn't gotten to her in time. Light, as bright and as furious as a thousand suns bloomed forth. Thick tendrils of lightning embedded themselves in his sight as what happened next took only a quarter of a second. Her outstretched hands somehow got a hold of the dog's large head and that power that had been whirling within and about her, causing her hair to spike up, shot forward.

Jon had felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He had seen a few spells here and there from the witch police, especially that night when he lost his mates to That Bastard ™ (a.k.a. Fenrir Greyback) but nothing had ever caused a reaction like this in him. It was like straight out of a Star Wars movie. Ripper had let go of the girl's ankle to try to get to her face. At that point the lightning went through him with such force it ripped the head from the body, spraying everything with blood.

Jon's wolf was both excited and on edge at such a magnificently gory display of power, but Jon's human side was far more concerned about the little girl whose mangled leg was pouring blood all about her. His eyes flitted towards the boy who seemed to be in shock but otherwise, his bite wound wasn't that serious. It was shallow and didn't even bleed that much. Jon knew a thing or two about dog bites, you see. The boy was lucky to be alive. Had Ripper aimed slightly more to the right, at the junction between neck and shoulder, he would not have been among the living.

After quickly instructing the boy to hold a piece of cloth to his shoulder, he turned his attention to the girl that was bleeding out on the floor next to him. She needed emergency medical care. Ripper, true to his name, had gnawed on her foot to the very bone. As the girl came to from whatever had overtaken her (and Jon thinks it was nothing short of berserk rage), he did what he could to stop the bleeding.

And then the old man, Fubster, showed up.

* * *

"Sweet merciful Mary, Mother of Christ! Jon, what-?"

"Colonel, you gotta get the kids to the hospital. I can't come with you. I have to clean this up before Ms. Dursley shows up and -"

They heard the girl scream and Jon saw her collapse on the ground, losing consciousness, the events just moments before finally catching up to her. He took her swiftly in his arms, mindful of the still bleeding, mangled ankle.

"Sorry about the blood on the car, old man. Do you have anything to wrap this up? That focken Ripper did a number on the lass. Always knew he was bad news. Never seen a dog with that shite of a behavior. There ya go, love. Nice and settled." He carefully placed her in the back seat as Fubster came over with the boy, Dudley.

"Atta boy, Dudley. Such a brave boy. We're going to take you to the hospital. It's a bit of a ride there but I reckon I can get there in no time." Fubster put the seatbelt on Dudley and checked his shoulder. He had quickly bandaged it and while Dudley had been quietly sobbing and asking if Harry will be okay, he seemed more or less fine. As fine as a child his age could be after what had happened.

"Jon, I saw lightning-"

"The girl did it. It- it shredded the dog apart. Never seen or felt anything like it. It was like-like Star Wars! Sith lightning or something. It almost hit me too!"

"Jesus, Jon. You alright?"

"Yeah, old man, I'm good. Gotta clean this up though. What a mess!"

And a mess it was indeed. Blood would wash out quickly enough but Jon had to get rid of the body of Ripper. The girl had used magic. He did not want to think about what would happen if those witch police folk showed up. Better not risk it, Jon thought.

Being a werewolf of four years, Jon was pretty good at disposing of mangled animal carcasses. And that wasn't the worst of it, either. He still had to figure out what to tell Ms. Dursley. Ripper had been her prized stud.

* * *

Auror Dawlish was part of the first response unit that had gotten to the location. What he expected was your usual muggle-born child causing shenanigans with their accidental magic. What he didn't expect was to find a young man, a registered werewolf, cleaning up what seemed to be a horrific crime scene.

The young man had looked up, then after a few seconds of internal debating, he sighed, looking resigned to his fate and set the mop and the water hose aside.

"We rushed the kids to the nearest hospital. They're in the car with the Colonel. He's a squib if that… helps?"

Dawlish rubbed the bridge of his nose. There was no way anyone was pinning this on the werewolf. It was in the middle of the day and on a New Moon no less. He looked at the two young Auror trainees and his partner. He set the trainees on the werewolf to question him and then his partner and he apparated near said hospital, waiting for that Colonel person to arrive with the children.

And arrive they did. The Colonel almost crashed into him. The man recognized the uniform, it seemed, but Dawlish wasn't given more than a second or two of the squib's attention as he quickly got out of his car and opened the door to the backseat.

"Either help me get the girl out or move out of the way, gentlemen."

"Merlin, her leg!" Auror Williams was the first to exclaim in horror and Dawlish moved to the side of his partner only to sharply suck in his breath and grit his teeth just to not have himself react similarly.

That was the Girl-Who-Lived. She was deathly pale, a small pool of blood staining the backseat from where her leg had been resting. Her leg was horrifically mangled to the point the bone was visible and she was covered in blood and there were bits of her clothing that seemed...charred?

"Williams, stay with the girl and Colonel, was it?"

"Fubster."

"Colonel Fubster. I'll… I'll go get- " Get what? Get who? Dumbledore? The Minister? Nonsense. "I'll fetch a Healer to deal with this."

The girl needed a healer as soon as possible. The last thing Auror Dawlish wanted was to be remembered as the man who left the Girl-Who-Lived a cripple for the rest of her life.

Dawlish rushed to a more discrete area and apparated to St. Mungo's.

St. Mungo's was as busy as it could get on a workday what with the general chaos that was Magical Britain daily. Unlike some people Auror Dawlish had a bone or two of discretion in his body, seeing as he had been sorted in Slytherin for the duration of his Hogwarts education. He smiled pleasantly at some of the Healers and patients as he passed them by - all people that he knew personally to some degree. He walked with a sure, swift stride, straight into a particular Healer's office. He knocked twice with two short raps and opened the door to find a middle-aged wizard sorting through medical documentation.

"Henry, what a pleasant-" the wizard began but Auror Dawlish, Henry Dawlish, interrupted him with one hand.

"I have a very delicate situation on my hand and need your help right away, Jules. It's about the Girl-Who-Lived."

Healer Jules stopped whatever he was doing and stood up from his seat. Henry had always struck him as a very serious, no-nonsense man, even back in the day when they were housemates. Henry also happened to be the man who got him out of a life sentence in Azkaban for his being a Death Eater. In a way, the two of them had always been partners in crime back in their Hogwarts days, though crime was a very strong word for what they did. Long story short, Auror Dawlish had gotten him out of a very thick, unpleasant situation and, naturally, Jules did his best to repay that favor. That and Henry also happened to be his Brother-in-Law.

It's been what? Six years or so since the war had ended. As far as Jules was concerned the faded Dark Mark upon his skin was nothing but a bad memory, a result of his family's pressure to follow in his older brother's footsteps. Unlike his brother, though, Jules had never been keen on any sort of violence thus he had opted to follow a career as Healer which had, thankfully, kept him off of the battlefield.

He knew why Henry was here. He had never been one of Dumbledore's men, nor had he been on the Dark Lord's side. He had been one of the few who tried to abide by the law, to uphold it to the best of his ability without the influence of these powerful men who led a war through the use of their pawns, the ordinary people of Magical Britain.

"How is John, by the way?" Jules asked idly while walking at Henry's almost punishing pace down the halls. It did nothing wrong to try to maintain some sort of false sense of calm about them, at least in front of his colleagues and whoever was looking in their direction.

"Starting Hogwarts come this September. Whichever house he gets in, I'll still be proud of him. He's very bright and Laura thinks he'd be a shoo-in for Ravenclaw." Henry said without looking at him. Jules could feel the fatherly love in his voice.

They arrived at the apparition hall and Jules grabbed Auror Dawlish's arm in preparation for a side-along apparition.

It was important to be said that what Henry Dawlish was doing was not being done in any official capacity. As an Auror on the clock he was only authorized to secure the possible secrecy breach, do damage control, some key obliviations after a thorough inspection and that was it. Auror Henry Dawlish was not a heartless man, however, and because of that, he had always gone that extra mile to make sure the people he worked with, muggles, squibs or magical alike, were left better off than the situation he had to work with.

Case in point - he had stumbled upon the Girl-Who-Lived with a mangled wound on her leg that, should it be left to the muggle healers, he knew she'd be carrying herself with a limp for the rest of her life. And after what that poor girl had done for Magical Britain, what she had been through for all of their sakes, this was the least he could do. And if it eased Jules' conscience a little bit by helping her, all the better.

* * *

MJ always used to say I was too headstrong, too impulsive for my own good. She was probably right, as she tended to be about such things. Even as a small child, back in the Before, I always found myself in the strangest and most convoluted situations, usually a product of my own brash thoughtlessness and desire to have the next big adventure. Like that one time with _The Teacup Incident_. I don't think even five lifetimes would be enough to let me live that down in peace, but I digress. The more the world pushes me down, the more I push back up. It's like I spent my entire life with that instinct to fight back no matter what and to keep my personal values and beliefs in the highest regards. Maybe, had I been less stubborn, less proud… yet that doesn't matter anymore, now does it? The past cannot be changed.

Thus I press on, feeling a little bit less than what I've been before. How long till I completely lose myself to this perpetual war I have with the universe? How long till there is nothing left of me?

I stir in the darkness that has embraced me in this nothingness. It used to feel hollow and empty, like I did Before, on the inside, ever since Ori's death. I know that hollowness intimately. It is a loneliness born of grief and suffering, unable to let go, unable to move on. Stuck in a limbo, in a void of despair and silent madness.

I don't feel hollow anymore. There is something here in the darkness, a warmth, a soft thumping presence, like the heartbeat of a lover, the soft smile of a child, a touch of a loved one. Like a human being standing by my side, whispering softly in my ear _**You are not alone anymore.**_ The darkness embraces me and I - it. You are not alone anymore, either. I tell it. To me, this is what it means to be human, what it means to be a person. To embrace others. The good, the bad, the in-between. Acceptance, unity, forgiveness. To build something greater, something better together.

I don't fear the darkness. Sometimes I fear the things that hide in it but I don't fear it specifically. Sometimes, in the darkness, I feel myself giving in to thoughts and feelings that, in the light, I keep suppressed and buried. Just like the light, darkness can be both forgiving and unforgiving. When I lie wide awake at night, when depressed, grieving thoughts haunt my mind and body, I try to think of all the reasons why I keep on going. There are always reasons to keep on going. My friends, my family. Myself.

In the Light, I learned to love others. In the Darkness, I learned to love myself. Even now, when everything that ever mattered to me is long gone, I still find the strength within to continue. Why? Because I learned to love and value myself. I kept finding strength in myself that I did not believe I had. And then I used that strength to help others. This isn't something that happened at one particular point in time. It is a perpetual, constantly evolving state that I've nurtured and cultivated, much like one would a fruit-bearing tree. To give better, bigger fruit, one must cut off some branches to strengthen others. Just like in life, when people must choose to continue forward. One thing must go for the other to continue existing. Something must change, evolve, become something else just for the sake of being. Like Light and Darkness. From Darkness comes forth Light and from Light - Darkness. Dawn and Dusk. The perpetual cycle of Life and Death.

Light is beautiful. Light is life. But light can also blind and burn. Humanity likes to pretend they are a people of the light. We thrive in sunlight, we are wakeful by day and sleeping by night. We like to pretend that good things can only come by the grace of daytime. For how many millennia have we worshiped the Sun as a deity? Even now, in modern times, we have harnessed its power to give us energy, to press further our expansion into the stars.

And aren't stars the crux of the matter? Dots of light scattered in the great dark. And we, humanity, we seek to revel in that great darkness, to conquer it, to make it our own, to become part of it. We seek to become masters of both light and dark. Black and White. Good and Evil.

I find that separation silly. The world had always been such a terrible, beautiful place, full of colors. Why must we divide the world into Light and Dark, Black and White, Good and Evil? Why must we insist there can be one without the other, that there aren't a whole plethora of colorful rainbows in between, that for every bit of good in a person there is at least some evil and vice versa?

We are what we are. And we are alive in this colorful, staggeringly beautiful life of ours. Together, always growing, always changing, always evolving, always seeking to further improve ourselves, always looking for a way, a path, a meaning.

Life finds a way. And, despite everything, so will I.

Thus I press on, feeling a little bit more than I've been before.

The darkness stirs and I hold it tighter to my being.

 _ **Don't let go.**_

And isn't that the opposite of a problem? I can't let go, never could, never did and I expect to never will.

Wakefulness begins to lift me from this safe, warm, dark place. I hear the beeping of machines and the voices of men.

Thus I end this dreamstate soliloquy, destined to forever be buried in the obscurity of dreams as they are often wont to do.

And yet… I don't let go.

I never do.

* * *

"Harry? Can you hear me, dear? Nod if you can hear me. Good girl. You gave us quite a scare for a moment there, sweetie. Can you tell me how many fingers I am holding up?" the girl gestures towards her eyes." Do you need glasses? I don't think you came in with glasses. We'll think of something, dear. Ok, I know there is a tube down your throat, but we will get it out soon enough, ok? You just woke up from surgery. I must say you are lucky your ankle will make full recovery. Not many people can brag about something like that. You're pretty brave, you know that? Your cousin hasn't stopped telling us how you rushed that stray dog to defend him. A real hero! And how old are you? Six? Almost seven?"

A nurse entered the room.

"Doctor Harvey? Officers Dawlish and Williams wish to speak with you. They're right outside."

"A moment, dear. We just need to get this out." Jules pointed towards the intubation tube. "Harry, I want you to take a deep breath. Just like that! Aaaaand it's out! Good girl. Yes, cough it out, I know it's unpleasant but what can we do. If you feel sore or any discomfort in your throat, just tell one of the nurses or doctors, ok? Alright, I leave you in the care of this darling nurse here."

With a slight wink that made the nurse roll her eyes, Doctor Jules Harvey left the patient's room and headed towards Dawlish and Williams.

"How's the Girl-who-, I mean how's the girl?" Auror Williams spoke first.

Jules adjusted his doctor's coat and removed the stethoscope from around his neck and absentmindedly played with it in his hands. He inhaled deeply and sighed before he started speaking.

"She'll be fine. Never seen a person glare at me like that in my life, but other than that, she'll make a full recovery. I don't think she likes hospitals. Harry's quite a fighter. She had gone into shock from blood loss… and there is also her state of magical exhaustion. Whatever triggered that kind of violent reaction from her core nearly drained every last drop out of her. Despite her magical exhaustion, her recovery was exceedingly fast, combating the effects of the shock in a surprising amount of time in conjecture with the magical healing procedures I applied as well as the work the muggle doctors did. She did lose a lot of blood though. The muggle doctors had to do a blood transfusion to keep her stable."

"Thank you for your help, Jules." Henry patted his Brother-in-Law on the arm with a nod and a tight-lipped smile.

"Don't worry about it, Henry. How can I not help you especially when a poor little girl is involved?"

Henry said goodbye to Jules and he watched as he apparated away. Williams took out a cig and lit it. The Aurors sat down on a bench outside the hospital, giving themselves some breathing room. Today had been harrowing in many ways and the day was hardly over. Dawlish would bet his Auror badge that he'd be having words with Dumbledore within minutes of depositing his report on Amelia Bones' desk. What a mess!

"You reckon the Trainees are done? They don't even have to obliviate anyone anyways since the only witness we left with them is a werewolf and the other one's a squib and he is here with us."

"They're done but let's give them half an hour more. That way they'll have a bit more time to write their reports. Pass me a smoke, Williams. Merlin, do I need one right now!"

"You saw her, right? She was...she was so tiny and fragile, Dawlish. Kinda puts everything into a different perspective, if you know what I mean."

"She kicked Healer Harvey in the abdomen with her good foot when he whipped his wand out. I'd hardly say she's fragile. Definitely a fighter. Which house do you reckon she'd be in?"

"You kidding me, Dawlish? She's a shoo-in for Gryffindor. Nothing that feisty can go in any other house. Imagine her in Hufflepuff? Hell, imagine her in Slytherin! Wasn't that your old house? She'd set them straight and have them all follow her around like ducklings. Old Slughorn would gobble her up in that Slug Club of his in no time."

"Slughorn's retired now. I heard Severus Snape has taken his place."

"Wasn't he a Death Eater? Dumbledore must've gone mad. Well, madder."

"He's the youngest Potions Master this century."

"Are you defending him, Dawlish? Never thought you of all people had it in you."

"I am not defending Dumbledore. I am merely stating a fact. If Snape is good enough for the job than he can have it. Johnny will tell me either way when he gets to Hogwarts this September."

"Ah yes, your boy's going to school this year, isn't he? Is he still being a smartass like his dad?"

The two Aurors chuckled.

"Yes, Williams, and proud of it. Helen's the spitting image of her mother, looks, character and all. The apple of Laura's eye, what with Johnny leaving us for school this year. She's taking it pretty hard."

"I reckon it won't be easy on you either, Dawlish. At least have him write you letters."

"Oh, I don't have to. Laura's been harping on him about it for months now. I doubt Johnny will dare miss a week without sending a letter. I certainly wasn't the letter-writing type when I was his age. Mother would bawl her eyes out every Christmas when I got off the train."

The two Aurors talked quietly for a little longer before deciding it was high time to gather up their respective trainees and head back to headquarters. Their job was done anyways. The children were obliviated. Nothing too invasive but enough to warp the memory of the event. It was a standard procedure for muggle-born and muggle-raised, like in the case of Harrietta James Potter.

* * *

I hate hospitals.

I especially hate it when I wake up in hospitals with little to no memory of how I got there in the first place.

I see my left foot in bandages, all the way up to the middle of my calf and I groan. Of course. That stray dog attack. The important thing was that Dudley got off with minimum injuries. I just had to go through Marge yelling at me for causing this much trouble. Not something I was looking forward to.

Hospital food was tolerable and Dudley was allowed to see me on the third day of my waking up. Why so late when it was just my leg damaged, I did not know. But Dr. Harvey insisted it was for my own good. I might be almost seven in this life but in the Before my best friend was a doctor from a family of doctors and, given what I've been through, I think I know a thing or two about injuries and hospital stays, and whatnot.

It's not that I don't like Dr. Harvey, but he is a bit too eager, a bit too anxious and his overall behavior screams subterfuge and secrets to the points it's gnawing on the back of my mind something fierce. He also has this faint snake and skull tattoo on his left arm that he tries so hard to hide but I saw it anyways. But I won't say anything about it to anyone. Most hospitals have rules about tattoos I think? Or at least they used to.

Dudley only got five stitches and he probably won't even scar permanently by the looks of it. Me? I'll be stuck limping with crutches for a few months into school. Way to start my education. Good show, short stack! Good show! At least Dudley brought my glasses so I'd be able to read to pass the time. Aunt Marge was all dressed in black and mourning, obviously. Apparently, her doggo Ripper ran off that stray mutt that attacked us and no one has seen him since. The general consensus is that he's dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. Luckily, Marge was too busy to cry about her hellhound to bother me much. She did bring me a few books on dog breeding, though, as well as about a hundred and fifty math problems for me to solve. I did them on the first day, the math problems I mean and I've been dying of boredom ever since. The books are so dry and useless for me that I haven't even bothered looking at them after the first page of the first book.

One of the nurses took pity on me and brought me some of her children's books. I enjoyed rereading the adventures of Robinson Crusoe as well as the Hans Christian Andersen collection of stories. The kiddie versions at least. It felt refreshing to be immersed in some light reading after so long.

In total my stay at the hospital was about ten days. I was surprised to see Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia waiting for me with their car, along with Aunt Marge, Colonel Fubster and that lanky fellow (I still don't know his name) waiting for me. It was a very awkward and emotionally charged reunion, especially because Dudley had decided we were to be attached at the hip and he refused to let go of me. I awkwardly waved Dr. Harvey and the nurses goodbye, for some reason feeling oddly anxious to leave the hospital, like I was missing something vital that had happened like I couldn't remember something important but I didn't know what.

We all drove back to Aunt Marge's place. It was a small procession of three cars, but still a procession for the sake of one little girl. What awaited me was a feast and compliments that felt so out of place that I couldn't help but be on edge the entire day. Some of my favorite foods were present at the feast and somehow I knew Dudley had something to do with it. It felt as if the world had turned on its axis, all these people being nice to me all of a sudden… it was too much for me and I was missing something so important that it was driving me crazy.

That night Petunia has me sleep with Dudley on the second floor. She had moved my things from that little storage room I had claimed for myself to the second floor. She even tucked me in which, by the way, had never happened before. Ever! Aunt Petunia had also secured my Xanax Bottle, which she silently showed to me before hiding it again in one of her dress' little hidden pockets. Good. One less thing to worry about.

We did not speak much except for false pleasantries to appease our guests. Aunt Marge was too busy drowning her grief and trying to dramatically cry on Fubster's shoulder, the poor man. Uncle Vernon seemed to have lost weight and his face was definitely less maroon than usual, which was a relief to me.

Morning found me with the declaration that we would be leaving in two days. It almost felt like a lifetime away when I was last in Privet Drive. The sooner we get home the better. Now if I could just remember what I was forgetting...

* * *

"Dudley, I have an idea, but I need your help to do it."

I've been hatching this plan for the last several hours. I know this may sound crazy but I've been going over the events on that day. And I've been going over said events a lot, considering I had spent ten days in the hospital with nothing better to do. I've had nightmares of this vague, Baskerville like monster gnawing at my foot, which, while quite terrifying, is not something my adult mind would imagine to cover up whatever actually happened. In short, I've been through much worse for something like this to really break my psyche. That, and for the week or so we've spent beforehand at Marge's place, not a single person we've met mentioned anything even remotely describing a large black stray dog.

So, the plan? Marge has security cameras all about the kennels, mostly to keep track of how well her personnel takes care of her dogs. And perhaps for security reasons. Because this isn't the age of the internet, I am pretty sure any security footage is kept locally, so that means there must be an office-like room somewhere in there that has footage at the date and time of the attack.

Cue Mission Impossible theme!

Aside from shoveling dog shit on that first day, I've never been to the kennels to explore them in-depth. The building has a single floor, with what is essentially a few corridors with cages for the dogs to sleep and eat in and every day they'd be taken out a few times to do their doggy business in a closed-in backyard space. Marge has six breeding pairs. Well, without Ripper let's call them five and a half. So, five and a half breeding pairs of some of the fines purebred prize-winning English Bulldogs in the country. They aren't really loud, mostly because Marge's staff takes good care of them. The workday finishes around eight o'clock and the staff go home around nine.

My plan was relatively simple. While everyone is sleeping, Dudley and I would sneak into Marge's room, steal her keys for the kennels, get inside, get to the staff rooms, which, thankfully are before the dog cages themselves, thus we won't be disturbing the pooches and breaking our cover. Then we would look for the videocassette (Can you imagine these are a thing now?! It's crazy!) and we would watch it at the appropriate time stamp which is sometime after two in the afternoon.

The best part of this plan? Uncle Vernon snores because he isn't sleeping on his special pillow and Aunt Petunia's got these earplugs so she herself can catch some sleep. Marge is dead drunk asleep at the moment so even if I hit her in the face with a sledgehammer the chances are she'd just snore at me.

I slid down the stairs on my butt to not cause any additional noise. The kennel keys were on her nightstand so I just had Dudley sneak in Marge's room and get the job done. All in all, getting into the kennels was piss easy. A bit of fumbling about in the dark and we opened the so-called office areas one by one. We found the surveillance room easily enough. It was a small setup with three tiny screens for each of the three cameras. My first order of business was to take out the videocassette for today and destroy the evidence we were ever here. After ruining the tape I dumped the cassette in the trash can which, by the way, was lidded and had a bit of paper waste in it. I just pulled out a few unused paper sheets and scrunched them up to cover the evidence. Easy peasy.

Finally, we came to the important part - finding out what the hell happened on that day. By the way, Dudley had stars in his eyes the entire time. He's adorable like that.

Welp, folks.

This is the moment of truth.

* * *

We were back in our room, as quiet as church mice and very distraught by what we have seen.

"Ripper attacked us."

"Yeah."

"Are we going to tell Aunt Marge?"

"I don't think we should, Dudley."

"What about Mom and Dad?"

I hugged the knee of my good leg and sighed heavily. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were absolutely the last people on this Earth that I would tell about my supposed lightning superpowers.

"Maybe about Ripper. Not so much about my superpowers."

Dudley seemed to mull it over.

"D-do you think you can teach me? The lightning, I mean. It was so cool and you saved me!"

I smiled sadly at Dudley. It's good he is taking things this well. Me, on the other hand? I annihilated a dog with electricity, then some weird robed men appeared and waved sticks around which caused heavy static on the screen and then it was like nothing had happened. I'll call them Men in Black, even though they obviously weren't wearing black. Given the fact that neither myself nor Dudley directly remember anything of what had happened in the video recording, it was obvious there had been no large black dogs. In short, we will be having nightmares for months of something that isn't true. And it was done on purpose. I was freaking out on the inside and I knew I wouldn't be able to get a wink of sleep tonight.

Maybe the hypothesis about my parents being part of a cult has some merit to it. Either way, I have a lot to think about. Like figuring out how to use that damn cool lightning!


	11. Your Mother's Eyes

Petunia had always known the girl was different. Different even for an unnatural freak like her. Ever since they had gotten her, she had always been...it was difficult to describe. Harrietta was a quiet child. Sullen, rarely, if ever susceptible to childish outbursts like her son Dudley. She was careful, cautious, brooding, tense and hyper-aware of her surroundings at all times.

She had often seen the girl pay almost as close attention to her as she herself paid to the girl. There had always been this glint of intelligence in those green eyes of hers. They were so much like Lily's, like her sister's. Those eyes. But they were nothing like her. Where Lily was happy, loving and brimming with kindness to the point where Petunia felt she'd throw up, Harry's eyes held a cunning to them that Pet likened to that of preying animals, a primal viciousness if you will.

The girl had always scared her on at least some level. When she thought no one was looking she'd become this hollow, empty thing, eyes seeing things that only she could see within the depth of her thoughts, body rigid in that pitiful, pathetic pose of an animal looking for any and all kinds of shelter and comfort. In such moments Pet would feel something stir in her chest that wanted her to embrace the girl. But she always stopped herself in time. She was, after all, just like her sister – magic. And magic was dangerous and destructive. Pet had been a fool once – she had hoped and hoped to one day be able to do magic herself but she had quickly been disillusioned of such notions. She had been jealous of her sister. Still is in fact. But that wasn't all. She was afraid of her. Such power was not meant for the likes of humans. Such power was unnatural and corruptive and look at what it did to her sister!? Look at what it was doing to Petunia as well!

Lily, sweet younger sister Lily. Always caring, always attentive. Always the perfect daughter Mother and Father had always wanted. Not like thin, wry Petunia. Oh no. If Petunia did not possess the virtues of Lily, then her other talents were not to be of interest at all. So proud they were. So loving. And so forgetful of Petunia, those parents of theirs.

Petunia was resentful and jealous of her sister and nobody knew this better than Petunia herself. Pet was never allowed to forget just how perfect Lily was. It was as if nobody remembered or cared to remember what a bratty child she was. Always crying, always demanding things. Whatever she did wrong, Petunia had to fix. Whatever she broke, it was Petunia's fault for not being a more attentive older sister. Petunia had been raised in a strict, old school fashion. Lily, who had almost died at childbirth, had always been treated like the fragile, precious child. Where Petunia had punishments for not completing her chores, Lily got pats on the head. Where Petunia was reprimanded for not being as successful at school as she should have been, Lily had always been praised for her natural aptitude.

How could she not grow resentful? Of one blood they were, true, but sometimes Pet just wanted to be praised as Lily had been. Then she had gone and found herself a handsome, rich and noble husband. A freak like her. Then Mother and Father died in that unfortunate car crash. And who was to take care of the funeral? Petunia. Who handled their affairs? Petunia. As always, Petunia had to do it all and Lily merely just reaped the rewards. As always.

Where was her little sister now, though? She was dead. Blown up to bits with that mangy maverick she called a husband. And their brat was now Petunia's responsibility.

Somehow, deep down in her heart of hearts, Petunia knew that sooner or later something like this would happen. She had not been surprised to find the child on her doorstep. Rather, she had been furious, shocked and disgusted. Even if she hated her sister, she would've never left her child out in the cold, in November! Perhaps it had been the work of magic, but the child seemed somehow unharmed by its stay outdoors.

She immediately knew, before even opening the letter, that this was Lily's child. She had Lily's face and skin, and when the child had finally awakened, she also had Lily's eyes. The eyebrows, the ears, and the hair was all Potter's. This dark, brooding creature, however, had nothing of Lily's inside her heart. Sometimes Pet even wondered if she had taken in some sort of changeling into her home. The girl was that different.

Yet... yet as the girl grew, along with her fears came thoughts of other things. Stranger things that were somehow connected to this strange child that never ceased to grab Petunia's attention, despite its best efforts. She was always attentive, always polite. Always seeking ways to please Petunia to the best of her abilities. All the chores that were given were always done within an acceptable time frame and with minimum fuss.

The girl knew how to read and write, yet Petunia had never explicitly bothered to teach her. The girl knew how to do the math, how to find deals when doing the grocery shopping with her Aunt. She knew things that, now that she was thinking about it, were all things grown-ups did. And just like that, one night, while all by herself, watching over a very ill, and heavily medicated Vernon, it came to Petunia that that's what the girl was. An adult in a child's body. But was such a thing even possible? It was such a preposterous and alien thought that all her instincts screamed to shove it away in favor of more normal and pragmatic thoughts. But the wily, scheming and calculating part of her halted such endeavors and returned the wild thought to the forefront of her mind to be dissected and worked on as if Pet was a sapper and it, the thought, was a dangerous bomb.

The child was no child at all. The child helped teach Dudley numbers. Helped teach her son how to say thank you and please. Dudley stopped breaking his toys. Not entirely, but still! And those robot toys. Always with the robot toys! If it wasn't for Vernon's insistence that this was what all the boys wanted at this age, she would've thrown them all away.

"One shall stand and one shall fall!" the girl had said once, barely out of toddlerhood. Her voice had been so pensive, so serious, so solemn and final that they had struck Petunia where she stood and every time the two children would play with these robot toys, the sound of it would replay itself in Pet's head, squirming in discomfort and fear, yet marveling, the alien tone coming out of that toddler's mouth.

Years later she would host a play date for her son with the children of the other housewives and the children were watching a movie that came out for those same toys.

Then.

Then she heard those words.

"One shall stand and one shall fall."

And it took all of Petunia's strength of will not to drop the tray with refreshments she was holding.

How had the girl known this!?

The girl had known.

The girl had KNOWN!

THE. GIRL. HAD. KNOWN!

Then Vernon's heart started causing problems and Petunia shoved everything aside to rush him to the hospital. And the girl knew what was going on, despite Petunia's best efforts.

"Aunt Petunia? I hope Uncle Vernon will be ok. I will make sure Dudley's distracted, so don't worry about him, ok? And Mrs. Higgs will take care of us. I promise not to cause trouble, Aunt Petunia."

Children don't talk like this. It is adults that make sure everything is ok. It is adults who help other adults with such delicate matters. Yet the girl had known. And, as Petunia looked down at this nervous creature that was trying so hard to improve the situation the only way it could, she realized that perhaps this is something that was needed. Perhaps this was what she had needed all along. Petunia was used to do all of this on her own, to handle situations that could only be handled by the delicate touch of a sensible woman. At this moment the girl reminds her of Lily, but not in the way she usually did. The girl reminded her of herself, comforting Lily in that awkward distant sister way just after the funeral of their parents.

Lily? Everything will be ok. I will make sure Mother and Father's affairs are taken care of, so you don't have to worry about it, ok?

The girl wrung her hands, anxious and awkward. Avoiding eye contact but still adamant to show whatever support she was capable of. Oh, Petunia knew this was no shyness or social awkwardness. These were the efforts of a person who had otherwise tried hard to do the exact opposite of what they were doing now – taking up Pet's attention. It must've been important to her. So important as to blow her usual cover, one that Petunia had blown so long ago but was still holding onto that pretense for normalcy's sake.

Petunia felt her eyes burning. How she had needed that support. How she wished her parents would've given her that very same support right about now. But they were dead and gone, still deifying their little girl even with their dying breaths. The girl, this little adult, in that particular moment, reminded Petunia of herself, and how that reminder made her chest collapse onto itself. With burning eyes and tears threatening to spill, Petunia said quietly:

"You do that girl."

You do that, strange adult girl. Keep my boy safe and happy while I try to keep my husband alive.

* * *

By the grace of God, by some great miracle, Vernon had lived. Petunia did not consider herself a religious person but even she, in such a critical moment of her life, found herself sending a silent prayer to whoever had been watching over her husband. To become a widow with two small children, at her age, with no job and no other income... it was unthinkable.

Her thoughts strayed to the creature and her son. Somehow she knew her boy was in safe hands with the girl. Even if they were staying with that ignorant cow, Vernon's sister, Marjorie.

* * *

The girl had gotten hurt. Dudley had gotten hurt, but the girl had taken the brunt of the attack. The girl almost died to save Dudley. Vernon's health, as delicate as it was at that moment, did not need to be jostled by this. But Vernon loved their son very very much, as much as she did, in fact, and she would and could not hide this from him. Not when Marjorie would be her usually cruel blunt self and tell him most inappropriately.

They get the girl from the hospital. Dudley is attached to her, refusing to let her get out of his grasp. The girl had saved their little boy. She permitted Dudley this behavior. It was normal. The girl stoically used her crutches to walk, hopping up and downstairs with an almost practiced ease and the determined look of someone who did not back down from any challenges.

That one night they think they are subtle, but Petunia hears them. She remains quiet and hidden and watches like a hawk, ready to intervene should anything happen. Then she hears their quiet whispers.

"Ripper attacked us."

"Yeah."

"Are we going to tell Aunt Marge?"

"I don't think we should, Dudley."

"What about Mom and Dad?"

"Maybe about Ripper. Not so much about my superpowers."

And Petunia felt herself douse in ice.

"D-do you think you can teach me? The lightning. It was so cool and you saved me!"

Petunia pulls away and walks back to her room. She felt numb, she felt crushed, but most of all, she felt helpless and terrified. The girl was magic. Well, Petunia had always known the girl was magic. No normal person has eyes like hers. Like Lily's eyes. But now it was different. Now it was real. And that magic had saved her little boy's life. And she hated it. And her chest hurt so much!

They return home and Petunia still feels like she was put through a ringer and barely survived. Her breath is hard to find, her heart is thumping furiously in her throat, her eyes are glassy and, despite her best efforts, Vernon notices that something isn't right and gives her a questioning, concerned look when the children aren't looking.

She smiles, but it is a thinly veiled attempt to dissuade his worries. She puts a hand on his arm and squeezes lightly. They will talk once the children were put to bed. She cleans the bed in Dudley's second bedroom. The room is stuffed full of toys, but after everything that's happened, she cannot have the creature sleep under the stairs in the cupboard. Vernon goes to their bedroom and Petunia prepares the children for their own bedtime. First is Dudley. Then she turns to handle the girl and she finds her still standing there at the door frame, still and just looking at the room with that uncertain, confused way. Guilt gnaws at Petunia but fear and weariness, and hatred for magic had always been stronger than that guilt.

"Don't stand there all night! I have to get to bed too, you know."

The girl moves, not saying a thing or looking at her. She leaves her crutches by the bed and then hesitates before sitting down on the bed, carefully testing the softness of the mattress, her hands running through the sheets with careful consideration. Her face is hidden by her wild hair but Petunia thinks she could see her eyes glimmering with wetness.

"Come on then, girl. Bedtime." she prompts her again and the girl is still quiet but she gets under the blankets.

Petunia moves to tuck her in. Her movements are a bit staggered and awkward, and she is careful not to look at the girl's face.

"Goodnight, Aunt Petunia." The creature whispers, but Petunia hears her and turns to look at the girl's face.

She looks long and hard into those green eyes, contemplating her next move. Does she talk to her? Does she tell her that she knows? Should she establish rules? Tell her to ban all that freakishness from her thoughts? Ask her what she is doing in a child's body?

It is too much for Petunia. She does not respond to the girl and turns to leave. But she hesitates. It is gnawing at her and she needs to know. She has to know. Not for her sake, but for Vernon's and Dudley's. Petunia Dursley does not trust easily. Not after Lily. Not after Mother and Father Died and she never got to make them proud. Not after this Volde- fellow forced them to keep this strange creature in their home.

Petunia stops at the door and there is a dark determination in her eyes. No amount of fear or trepidation ever stopped any mother to do what was right for her child. A mother would always lay down her life for her children. A mother would always overcome her personal failings for the sake of her family. And Petunia Dursley was nothing if not a mother to her son.

"Harry." Petunia starts and she hears the girl shuffle in her bed. "We need to talk."

The girl lies still and quiet and Petunia finally turns. The girl has sat up in her bed, her form tense and her dark eyebrows are knit together with the heaviness of a dark thundercloud. The girl knows this isn't going to be a normal talk between an adult and a child. Petunia knows this too. It is time to stop pretending, Petunia told herself and that steeled her resolve even further. She couldn't afford to pretend everything was normal anymore.

"I know what you did." Petunia began, even though her most urgent question was to ask WHO ARE YOU. "I know why you did it."

Petunia took a step forward. There was an almost fanatic glint in her eyes, not that she could see it, but the girl's eyes widened in alarm and it seemed as if her hair was ruffling and puffing up on its own.

"You will not do these unnatural things in the house. You will not do unnatural things anywhere near where the neighbors can see. And you will most certainly not do unnatural things in front of Vernon. Am I clear, girl?"

Petunia wanted to establish rules. She wanted to show the girl who was still the mistress of the house. She needed to show the girl she did not tolerate frivolities of any kind from her. Let her fear me, she thought. Fear me as I fear you. Let her taste her own medicine.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia."

"You will be polite and quiet. If I hear even one person in Little Whinging complaining about you it's back to the cupboard. Am I clear?"

"Crystal, Aunt Petunia."

With each order, Petunia stepped forward. It was like approaching a volatile, bubbling, frothing menace of a storm that could explode in her face at any given moment. She was terrified. But she thought of Vernon and Dudley. She needed to do this. She had to protect her family from the magic this creature possessed. She needed to make herself clear in her intentions.

"If you so much as hurt Dudley, I will destroy you." She said, her voice a hiss, eyes glinting in the darkness of the room.

The girl said nothing, her fists clutching the blanket in a death grip, her pale face yellow in the light of the streetlamp shining from outside. Only her eyes were still that unnatural vivid green. Like they were glowing and not allowing the yellow light overtake the bright green color.

"Do you know what you are? Do you know who you are?" Petunia whispered harshly. "Who are you? Answer me."

"I-I am Harry. Just Harry." the girl whispered back, voice overwhelmed and bewildered. Afraid. Good, Petunia thought.

"And before that? Who were you before that?!"

Silence.

For a long time, there was nothing but silence and the stares of two emotionally distraught women.

Finally, as if a great dam was broken loose, an answer was given.

"Fiona. Before. Before I was Fiona."


	12. Harry Potter and the Revanchist

Somehow, everything seemed normal, and it was driving me crazy because I knew it wasn't. Aunt Petunia now knew. It was such a surreal evening that night. She had stood there, frozen, pale, with large glistening eyes and lips impossibly thin. She had stared at me with the most intense sense of curiousity I had ever gotten out of anyone. And then she had started asking questions. Who did you use to be? What happened? How did you end up here? Her curiousity was more powerful than her fear of me and this power that was within me. I think she was most intrigued by the part that, previously, I had been born in 1995. A year that hadn't even come to pass yet.

She asked me about the future and I answered as curtly as possible. I told her that I wasn't (and still aren't, in fact) certain whether or not I was even on the same version of Earth I had been born on. I gave her a short, concise explanation about how one cannot travel to the past according to scientists and how I was fairly certain that whatever I knew of the future would most likely not come to pass. I told her so in hopes that she wouldn't pester me for things such as companies worth investing in, lottery numbers and the like. In all reality, I had no idea if my knowledge of the future would be useful or not. But if it ended up being useful, I'd make sure to benefit from it. And the best way for that to happen was to eliminate whatever possibility there was for unnecessary intervention.

Aunt Petunia is a smart, shrewd woman. She isn't, however, someone gifted with any sort of vision or imagination bar what would benefit her immediate goals. It's sad, really, because she does have the tools to become someone better. She is good with numbers and has an exceptional memory. Her ability to discern the qualities of people just by looking at them impresses me greatly to this very day. She is a woman of detail and strict principles. And yet she lacks the ambition to make something greater of herself. It is wasteful, is what it is.

"This is how you know to read and write, isn't it? And you have been teaching my Dudders, too, haven't you?"

I nod. I take education very seriously. I am old enough at this point to know just how important it is. And just how much I had ruined my life because of a single man. A man who had thoughtlessly tossed me aside, left me hurting and expecting. And… and it still hurts. I swallow thickly.

" Education is important." Is what I tell Petunia, too.

"How old were you when…?"

"When I died? Twenty-four, I think. I do not remember how it happened. I just sort of woke up here."

"You woke up here? In our house? What of before that?"

"When I say wake up, it's more of the gradual gain of awareness after a major surgery. Have you ever had surgery? It's like that. You aren't all there and in the next moment you are. I can't explain it. I was really, really young, though."

"Do you remember anything before…?"

"Before I arrived at your house? My parents, you mean? No. And to be honest, I find myself not caring to remember. It is… difficult enough for me, as is."

Petunia did not press me further on this particular topic. Either she understood that I was talking about losing not one but two sets of parents, two sets of family, or she simply did not wish to press her luck that much.

"What kind of education did you have?"

"In the Before? I finished High School a few years ahead of my peers. I...I had a lot of personal issues and I lost- I lost everything to a car accident. I was just about ready to step on my own two feet when I got here. I was going to go to university. I had my own house. Huge, open property surrounded by woods and mountains. My own little piece of the world in West Virginia. Two rescue dogs, some chickens. I wanted to get a horse or two. Learn how to ride. I don't know what went wrong and…" it scares me. What went wrong. Why did I lose faith in the world again? Why did I kill myself?

"What did you lose?" Petunia's voice was barely above a whisper.

"My baby. I lost my baby." and my voice cracked, thick with emotion. My vision blurred with the tears that sprung forward and it was difficult to breathe, feeling my chest constrict harshly and my throat closing in on itself. I wanted nothing more than to reach with my hands and rip my heart out to make it stop. Yet I couldn't stop. "I was 30 weeks pregnant. They told me the driver had a seizure. It wasn't even his fault. I was… I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. It isn't fair. I can't even visit doesn't even have a grave here!"

I let the sobs go and the tears flowing. When had it been that I last cried? When had I last had the chance to even think about this. Graves are not for the dead. The dead die and they pass on to somewhere else, leaving everything material, including themselves, behind. The graves are for the living, for those who still suffer the grief, the love, the longing. For those who can't let go. And even that little solace had been ripped from me.

There was a very good reason why I chose to make a home for myself halfway across the world. I had to rip myself away from all the memories. I had to find a way to stop the hurt. But it was in everything around me. At the time I lost my Ori, I was living with my best friend MJ, She had graciously offered her family's summer residence in Wiltshire. A large, lovely manor with beautiful gardens that were perfectly cared for. There was a large library and so many balconies and large rooms with bright, open windows that it had been very difficult to remain angry and stressed as I had been at the start of my pregnancy. MJ would often take me on little tours around the manor and show me its secrets. A loose floorboard here, a hidden alcove there. A few secret tunnels built into walls so seamlessly that I would've never been able to find them had she not pointed them out to me.

Ori was buried in the Keats Family Graveyard. I think of him constantly, even now. He plagues my mind with fantasies of things that could have been, things that I knew very keenly and painfully never will be.

I feel Aunt Petunia's wiry arms around me, holding me in an awkward embrace. I try to control my breathing, to stop crying and get a hold of myself. But I keep on sobbing quietly, trembling in her arms, very much aware of my need for this simple contact, for this human comfort I'd been lacking for so many years now. I sob. I fall asleep. I wake feeling more rested than I have ever been in years. I feel lighter. The grief and longing are still there but, somehow, I feel lighter.

One of the greatest boons of my lithe, small child body is the mobility it provides me with, even with one foot in a cast. I hop down the stairs expertly, now that I have been doing this for a week. I might be able to do it without holding the railing, but, despite what my outward appearance suggests, I am no child. I'd rather err on the side of caution than fall down and break my other foot or, God forbid, my neck.

Dudley, that sweet, rambunctious child, is still hovering about me like a mother hen. I find myself severely underprepared for such behavior, even if it had been something I had wanted for a long time. The affection. Things are the same as always but the Dursleys were feeling slightly awkward about me. Vernon didn't know what to make of me, Petunia was pretending that night didn't happen and Dudley was trying to capture my attention in any way possible.

First day of school was fast approaching and, given the state of my foot, I spent most of my time sitting down and mulling over my next course of action, while Dudley and his gang ran around playing superheroes and whatever games they could think of that involved running, yelling and general boyish munchkinery.

I had the power to shoot lightning out of my hands. I had the power to rip things apart with lightning. And that power was somehow related to the death of my parents and my being here with the Dursleys. All the little comments, all those knowing looks Petunia and Vernon shared that thought were hidden and secret but I saw anyways. Everything made sense. Something had taken my memory of the event, had warped it into something else that made the event more easily explained. More a nightmare with some sort of obscure origins than the horrendous truth that it was.

I had superpowers.

And, like any nerd worth their salt, I was going to learn to control them and exploit the hell out of them. I had no delusions of grandeur. I was perfectly aware that somewhere, somehow, there was a hidden community of people capable of erasing other people's memory. What I had done had been something expected and prepared for. Something that was part of what They were. I had no idea who They were. All I knew was that my mother had become a part of Them, that she, along with my father, had met their gruesome ends somewhere, and that I, their little girl, had managed to get under Petunia's tender care, to be raised ignorant of Their presence.

I had speculations. I had tons of them. Facts? Very, very few. Had telling Petunia been a mistake? Maybe, but given what I knew of the woman and her hatred of all things unnatural, I highly doubted she'd ever do anything to help Them in any way.

Were These people my enemy? That was a top priority question to answer. I might as well be a sitting duck, doing nothing while They wait for the right moment to get rid of me with everybody being none the wiser. I doubted anyone besides Petunia even had an inkling of what, or , rather, who I was. That I was decades older, with decades worth of experience in the art of sabotage, subterfuge and information gathering.

I might not be Aunt Petunia when it comes to her people observing skills, but I do have a particular set of skills that makes me, hehe, a nightmare, should I apply myself properly and in a timely fashion. I had been, after all, the Legacy of the Red Manticore. That's what they called me back in my gaming days, way back when Bucketpants, that glorious bastard, retired and left me the entirety of his account's resources. Bucketpants didn't retire. But now was not the time to think of these things. It's what he taught me that matters. Bucketpants taught me how to play his game. And the name of his game was War.

Such was the beauty of how internet connected people from all over the world. A heavily misunderstood and misguided genius thirteen year old and a fifty-something retired soldier bound to a wheelchair with nothing better to do than slaughter people online in a massive online fantasy world. I miss the bastard.

But I digress.

What did Sun Tzu say about planning again? Wait, no. It was Eisenhower. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Plans are useless but planning is indispensable. That's the course of action I am taking right now. Planning. A lot of it.

Planning about what to do in cases of emergency. Planning evac routes. Planning locations for hidden caches. I know of at least three trees that have holes or hidden crevices underneath their roots in a fifty meter radius where I can hide away money or some sort of small weapons. Like that knife set I had pilfered from Aunt Marge's kitchen. What? The opportunity was right there. She was a distraught mess, she has a gazillion knives and she wont notice ten of those missing. Plus I had been at the hospital the whole time (except for the last 2-3 days), but given my current handicap, I am certain that I would be the last possible person Marge would think of when- no, IF she notices her knives missing.

They are of quality make, expensive and extremely sharp and sturdy. I plan to keep them hidden away until a few more months pass. I might hide some of them around here but I've yet to secure any of the hidey holes I've found and, frankly, I don't think snooping about with this useless foot of mine is a good idea. It will attract the wrong kind of attention and I still don't know if I am being watched or not. Either by nosy neighbours or… by Them. With this I will bide my time. There will always be a moment or two when I'd be able to slip away unnoticed for half an hour.

Now, as for my superpowers…

I have very little idea how to do anything with them. What causes them to manifest? What sort of control is required to activate them? How much control do I actually have? Can this control be improved. Can this power be trained or is this some sort of passive supernatural defense specific to my particular mutation or whatever this thing is that caused it to manifest in the first place?

What to do? What to do? I had so many ideas and hypotheses and I had no clue where to start. For a moment my focus shifted back on the children playing in the street. They were playing Jedi, I think. Wait. Playing Jedi.

Well now. From the babe's mouth, if I may say so myself.

Lightning.

Sith Lightning.

I've spent years panting after Darth Vader. Why haven't I thought of this earlier!?

Jedi training. Sith Training. Revan. Revanites to be exact. I had a lot of ways to go about this. But at least this was a start. The fastest way to get results, the fastest way to see if I could get results, was to go for Sith training. While I do not condone a large part of the whole killing and maiming thing Sith do on a regular basis, their core philosophy was very close to what I believe triggered my episode with the lightning.

Emotions fueled the Force, fueled the Sith using the Dark Side of the Force. I've always been a rather emotional and impulsive person, easy to anger, easy to rile up. I've gotten better but let not anyone be fooled. I am still pretty much that same little girl that puts laxatives in her Aunt Sophie's cup of coffee for being the insufferable entitled narcissistic bitch that she is. I'm still that person. Except that I've grown and with my growth I've learned not to get caught. I've gotten really good at not getting caught.

There was also another reason why I was considering to start with the teachings of the Dark Side. I needed to know that I'd have the power to protect my family. To protect Dudley and his mom and dad. Power is something the Sith covet the most. Jedi, on the other hand, covet order, restraint and moderation. They are mediators and ambassadors of peace. It is their job to maintain a pleasant conversation with, let's say my Aunt Sophie and her two shitty daughters, Auntie Anna and Auntie Petra.

Now, Jedi Me maintains pleasant conversation with said harpies. Then Jedi Me feels like shit for a month because the topics of conversation always come about me being the shit stain of the family tree one way or another and, even though I've shown far greater success and mental capacity in every way than the collective whole of this den of harpies, I am still considered less for being a more of a tomboy and less of a proper lady of the family.

Jedi Me scenario is analyzed and I come to the conclusion that I don't like feeling like shit for a month. Furthermore, Jedi Me would encourage said shitty behavior from the harpy squad which would make the foreseeable future suck.

Now, we have Sith Me. Sith me listens to Auntie Sophie's vagina monologue with a sweet smile on her face. Sith Me had also mixed in a laxative, some home brewed poppy extract and the tiniest pinch of powdered strawberry seeds in every single one of Aunt Sophie's prized, high quality imported spices, her expensive Bio brown Sugar, her coffee beans and pretty much everything Sith Me could get their hands on within the fifteen minute time frame it takes to brew coffee for Auntie Sophie, her harpy brood, my mother and grandmother.

Auntie Sophie is allergic to strawberries. She gets rashes all over the body. She carries at least 10 epipens on her, so she'd be fine, even if she gets into anaphylactic shock. Would Sith Me feel guilty? Probably for a little bit. Then she'd give all that coffee to everyone, sit down to continue listening how great Auntie Anna and Auntie Petra and their children are and how bad and useless I am, much to the chagrin of my mother and grandmother, who, of course, never bother to defend me against such abuse.

I don't drink coffee. Sith Me doesn't drink coffee either, but she pretends to sip it. Within minutes Auntie Sophie starts scratching herself and Sith Me suppresses the urge to cackle madly. Well. _**Vengeance is served.**_

Justice and Vengeance are different sides of the same coin. Sometimes Justice takes time. Sometimes Vengeance requires time _**and preparation to be truly satisfying**_.

Time is something I do not have spades of. What I do have is an unknown time frame, in which I must find myself prepared for whatever this world is going to dish out. Thus, I must seek results as fast as possible. Thus I find myself recalling the Sith Philosophy.

 _Peace is a lie, there is only passion._

 _Through passion, I gain strength._

 _Through strength, I gain power._

 _Through power, I gain victory._

 _Through victory, my chains are broken._

 _The Force shall free me._

It is strange how it always comes down to this. To freedom. I spent my whole life looking for that freedom. Fighting for it. Possibly dying for it. And now I have found the most unlikely means for it.

My eyes follow Dudley's form as he laughs and runs around. So carefree. _**So naive**_. So innocent. A child that has yet to really feel and understand the world about him. That child is why I am going to do what I am going to do. That child and his happiness is what will give me the incentive to do this. _**To seek power**_.

With pursed lips I stand up and with the help of my crutches I make way to the more secluded parts of our neighborhood. Dudley notices that I have moved straight away and follows me without question. Sometimes I truly wonder if I deserve his loyalty. It makes me feel guilty. But the larger part of me is pleased that there is someone on this Earth that accepts me for who I am, even though I am nothing more than a monster.

 _ **My Monster.**_

"What!? Harry, no!"

"Harry, yes! C'mon, Dudley! I want you to hit me as hard as you can!"

I'm so proud of him, you know? If this had been a few years ago, he'd have had a field day with me as his punching bag? Now? Dudley's on the verge of tears. We've been at it for fifteen minutes straight and nothing I say or do would convince him to hit me.

To be honest, if I put myself in his shoes, I wouldn't want to hit me either. I'm a slip of a girl with thick, round eyeglasses, with a cast on one leg AND supporting herself on crutches.

"It's in the name of Science, Dee! Think about the progress! The breakthrough!"

"I don't wanna hit girls, Harry! Dad says it's very wrong! Boys shouldn't hit girls!"

The hell have I been to miss out on that speech of uncles? Neverming.

"Dudley, I need you to hit me so I can try to make that lightning again!"

"No!"

 _ **This might take a while.**_

 __And it did. It took Dudley ten days to finally agree to hit me. He slugged me so hard in the stomach I saw stars and probably would've fallen straight to the ground if it hadn't been for my crutches.

"Motherffffff-" I bit my lower lip to stop the swear from reaching Dudley's innocent ears. I slunked onto the ground and assumed something close to a fetal position, failing quite spectacularly at whatever I had been trying to do.

This may have been a bad idea.

 _ **A very bad idea.**_

No one ever said this was going to be easy. It wasn't as if I was throwing rocks into the darkness, hoping to hit something. I knew what I could achieve. I knew I had done it before. The conviction was there. The incentive was there. All I needed was the willpower to reach for whatever was within me to make it reality again. The power within that I don't remember feeling or seeing. Power that could save lives. _**Power that could take lives just as easily. Power is indiscriminate.**_

It wasn't until the last day before school that something happened. It wasn't like flipping a switch. It wasn't like I'd feel a sudden surge within me. I had taken to meditating or as close to it as I was capable. I had found this spot that was quiet. The sounds of the streets far away from me. There was a small creek, just on the edge of the neighborhood whose water I could hear splashing and rushing through rocks of various sizes. I wasn't far from home, Privet Drive was already on the edge of Little Whinging, which was why the local children always found themselves with so much room to play and run about in summer. I could hear the water. I could hear the wind, the breeze that rustled the leaves of the trees. I could hear the little birds flitting about and chirping and singing. Bugs were buzzing, a lone dog was barking in the distance.

I took a breath and I let it out. I take a breath and I let it out. I inhale the essence of the world and… I… _**let go.**_

It is a surge but not a sensation. It is a subtle surge of knowledge, of something ancient and eldritch and mysterious. Of something that has always been there but I see as if for the first time. It is a sense of belonging, a moment of Eurika!, a sudden understanding of the world around me in a way I never thought would be possible.

I look down at my palm where I had taken a dry leaf from the ground. I inhale sharply and tiny bright sparks flow through the leaf, disintegrating it.

The moment is gone. That sudden clarity is gone. And there is no leaf in my hand anymore. My heart is beating something wild in my chest, like an animal in a cage.

I have done it. This is it.

 _ **This is Power.**_

This is my Power.

It hadn't been a fluke. It had been a deliberate action on my part. Whatever triggered it, I shall hone into it again and force the same result until I could make this happen again and again, until I have full control of whatever this thing is.

It takes me a few more months before I achieve flashier results. And, while I thought this would be the most challenging thing I would be doing, I couldn't have foreseen how wrong I would end up being.


End file.
